one of the best parts of facilitating this little makeshift blog is that readers regularly send me recent and provocative articles about the state of modern motherhood. thank you, and keep ’em coming!

the last two articles i received are friction-inciting commentaries on the cultural construction of motherhood. one deliniates the high child nurturing standards held by american women. the other investigates the high career-related standards held by this same set. taken together, these articles reveal a veritable fog of ridiculous expectations obscuring nearly every aspect of women’s lives.

the first is a wall street journal article by erica jong describing the attachment parenting craze as a sort of self-inflicted prison for mothers, who, despite their best kid-wearing, cloth-diapering, baby-food-making efforts are never able to meet the socially accepted standard for mothering, which was created in large part by dr. sears. but no matter what one’s thoughts are regarding attachment parenting, it’s hard to disagree with jong’s lament: “rarely does a new mother hear these golden words: “do the best you can; there are no rules.”

the second article is jessica olien’s slate magazine exploration into the culture of motherhood in the netherlands, where part-time work, outings with friends, and self-care are celebrated ways for moms to spend time. as opposed to the guilt felt by american mothers who remove themselves from the full-time workforce, dutch women do not seem to link their self-esteems to their workforce prowess. the conclusion is that the drive that american women have assumed in order to further women’s progress has “set us up for a world in which none of us is having any fun.”

olien writes,

“…american women as a whole are not getting any happier. if anything, the studies show that we are emotionally less well-off than we were before.”

high standards have the potential to launch us into more meaningful, productive, and useful lives. but perhaps something has gotten lost in translation between our feminist fore mothers, who constructed domestic co-ops and deconstructed glass ceilings, and those modern women who have inherited big tasks that have somehow become detached from the big dreams that birthed them. what was once a grand vision of equality seems now to feel more like a universal clamoring for perfection in every arena. the guilt that ensues squelches the kind of big dreaming that women once had for the state of the world. and so, in the words of jong, we reduce our visions to the scope of our homes and families. “[we] substitute our own small world for the world as a whole.”  

standards ought to be the bi-product of dreams, the way they came into this world in the first place. so perhaps the key to generating a world that is fairer (and for heaven’s sake, MORE FUN) is to leave our faithful posts as the keepers of the rules and ideals. if we join the ranks of the dreamers, perhaps the standards we generate will make more sense in our contexts. perhaps standards will not imprison us but free us. but the only way to get there is to start where the women before us started: with a vision of a better life.

first grade, for me, was when the curriculum ceased to be play-based. the active life of preschool and kindergarten, with all of its hiding and seeking and cooking and dancing, became fodder for my daydreams as i plugged away at my little wooden first grade desk at what was unabashedly called “seatwork.” i resisted this stationary kind of learning so much that i almost failed the first grade, but in the face of at least eleven more years of school, i learned to expand my knowledge within the confines of the system. unknowingly, i separated the parts of me that were once beautifully integrated in childhood: mental and physical exercise. there were spelling tests and there was recess. there was long division, and there was sports practice. there was contemporary theology and there was jogging. as i was being created into a contributing member of society, there was evening, and there was morning for approximately 4,140 days.

as i was riding my bicycle on the greenline yesterday with the bird in tow, i lapsed into the guilty reflection that is common to upper middle class mothers. i calculated how many days i have spent formally acquiring knowledge in educational settings, and i came up with the above number. then i commenced to worry that “my brain is turning to mush.” i thought of my diplomas that are not framed in an office but are still tucked away in their little black folders between photo albums of my kids’ first years and behind a colorful butcher paper masterpiece that the monkey created at school. i thought of the staggering amount of guilt that is experienced as women like me, who have spent the majority of our lives doing “seatwork,” are plunged into the unfamiliar world of mothering, where equations and essays are irrelevant. i started plotting my next vocational move once the kids are in school, work that would justify my masters degree and present a reason to frame those diplomas. and then i remembered another stark contrast between life in educational systems and life as a mostly stay-at-home-mom: the former is future-oriented by design. the latter can only be fully embraced by living in the present.

i went on like this for an hour — enough time for the bird and me to ride to shelby farms and back into town. i reflected on the way that my life now involves so much physical activity — schlepping kids, groceries, and laundry, pushing the steam mop, averting disasters, rushing to disentangle the climbing bird from all manor of hanging garage tools. the seatwork smarty pants in me unleashed more judgement. “what a waste,” she said.

and then, miraculously, i remembered who i was in the first place, before the confines of first grade hit, before i spent 4,140 days compartmentalizing mental and physical excercise. i am someone who loves a play-based curriculum and an integrated life. and that is precisely what i’ve got right now.

so as the bird and i finished up our bike ride and went on to schlepp the week’s groceries, i laid the guilt to rest. perhaps mothering young children is a chance to return to a more natural state of being, a time to collect all of the scattered parts of me and put them back together.

guess where i’ve been six out of the last twelve days?

• a) to an urban spa
• b) to yoga class
• c) to our city’s new anthropologie (did i mention that i like that store?)
• d) to the pediatrician’s office

sadly, the answer is d.

reasons inc lude:

• the monkey has sinus problems
• the monkey has a double ear infection
• the bird has a double ear infection
• the bird needs an ear re-check

and now on to my personal failure as a mother…

during a well-earned time-out for the monkey, i opened the bathroom door (yes, the bathroom door. the monkey’s upstairs room is just too long of a haul with a kicking, screaming child) because he was pounding it with his fists. i simply asked him to stop all of this pounding and closed the door. on his pinky finger.

the finger looked broken, and the monkey was hysterical for an hour. my car practically drove itself to the familiar destination, where our doctor looked upon us with pity and said, “wow. i feel like we’re really getting to know each other!”

the finger isn’t broken, so after the doc “buddy taped” the pinky to the forth finger, we were free to go and live our lives in (hopefully) less dramatic, better behaved, and more careful fashion.

i’ve not yet completely processed the whole episode but i did notice two things during my own personal motherhood hell. first, as soon as the injury happened, my head was flooded with this message: “don’t fall into the black hole of guilt. that will not help anyone.” i also observed that even the slightest little joke about my role in this injury would have sent me over the edge. but the doctor was very compassionate toward both the monkey and me. this is just one reason why i love her.

before i had kids, i loved to travel. i delighted in frequent flyer miles. now i’m a frequent flyer at laurelwood pediatrics. shouldn’t i get some sort of a prize? free clarithromycin?

first name: Erin

age: 31

current city:  Birmingham, AL

living situation: I live in a house with my husband, 21-month old son, and our golden retriever named Atticus. We are expecting a baby in September.

occupation: Photographer, self-employed. My  husband and I are both photographers who run our business together. I shoot mostly kids and family sessions, he does commercial work, and we photograph weddings together. We share all the other gazillion responsibilities of running a business including administrative tasks, communicating with clients, bookkeeping et cetera.

how do you structure your time and space? I primarily care for our son during the day, though our schedule allows us to (somewhat) leisurely start most mornings as a family sharing breakfast, light housekeeping and getting ready for the day. I really enjoy this time together and see it as a luxury we will not always have. Around 8 a.m., my husband goes to work downstairs in our basement office. It really is his office because we’ve discovered that I never work down there. I keep my computer on the bar in our kitchen where I steal moments to check email during the day and then sit to work during our son’s nap and after he’s gone to bed. I rarely feel caught up in my photography work so I constantly feel the pull to be working. I have found that I can really attend to (and enjoy) the time with our son better when we leave the house. We usually spend our mornings going to the library, the grocery store and running various other errands. We’re usually home one morning a week to play (or he plays while I attempt to clean/do laundry). I also attend a weekly Bible study where our son stays in the nursery.

I usually leave the house for three to five photo shoots a week (not including photographing weddings about half the Saturdays of the year). My preference is to do these over one full day (usually Fridays) and one other morning or afternoon. Through trial and error, I found leaving for one entire day during the week was easier for me than trying to schedule shorter blocks of time away on several different days. The latter made me feel like I was constantly switching gears, and I was totally frazzled in all of my roles. I hire a babysitter for most weekdays I leave to shoot, though my husband sometimes spends the time with our son. My mother-in-law takes on most of our working Saturdays, and other family members take the rest. Sometimes I’ll even bring our son with me on a shoot. He enjoys watching the spectacle of my working and the treats I bring to entertain him along the way.

Because we work most Saturdays, we have recently begun protecting Tuesdays as a day for our family to do something fun together – hikes, museums, et cetera. Our business feels established but it seems like we’re constantly still wading through what we all need and what works best for each of us. Even though my husband and I don’t have a lot of intentional date nights, we spend so much of our time together and really do enjoy most of it (we owe a lot of the enjoyment factor to some incredible marriage counseling that we still regularly attend to help us figure out how to work/play/do life together). I don’t take much time for me by myself away from home right now. I haven’t really figured out how to do that well.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? Working from home and mostly creating my own schedule allows me to feel like I spend most of my time with our son. I really enjoy the fact that none of us has to be anywhere most mornings and we can (theoretically) choose when we want to work. One of my main challenges is combating the mom-guilt that seems to always be lurking (work more or work less, organic vegetables or free cookies at Target, cutting out coupons or spending my free time doing things that feel more life-giving to me, mother’s day out or not…). I also struggle with contrasting the affirmation that comes so quickly and easily from my clients with how hard it can seem to get through an evening with my toddler before bedtime. Also, I really wish I had more time for friendships in this season. I miss my closest friends who live in other states and find it hard to have the time, energy and all the rest that’s needed to really cultivate new friendships. 

-what season(s) preceded this one? Before parenthood, we were in the early stages of running our own business full-time from home. In some ways, life felt crazier then because it wasn’t guided by the routine that raising a child demands. We worked all the time; I scheduled photo shoots and meetings whenever clients wanted, which left me with little routine and balance. Our marriage, our home and our business are much healthier now than they were then due to the rhythms we have established. 

-what season(s) might your future hold? It is difficult (and I’m not sure I’m ready) to see beyond our life right now with young children. We hope that our family is still in the beginning phases but we also have lots of dreams and goals for our business. I honestly have no idea how we’re going to balance working and raising a family as we grow (in both ways), and I can easily get very overwhelmed at the possibilities. In the months that we were anticipating our first child, I remember how fearful I was of not being able to balance it all. It hasn’t been easy by any means but we’ve waded through and made progress in figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Remembering that helps me to have hope that through trial and error, we’ll figure out new routines (and how to make enough money to eat).

favorite family activities: Taking walks/being outside together, traveling and seeing new things and places.

favorite solo activities: Reading, looking through home magazines for ideas, talking to my best friends on the phone (in person would be much better).

sources of inspiration: my mom; my husband and my son;  people who are willing to be transparent and real. 

best MakeShift moment: Life feels full of these moments right now. I had so many expectations of what I would be like as a mother and it has been refreshing to let go of a lot of those. Just recently, while I was preparing dinner, I was so happy that my son was occupied while pouring the dog’s water back and forth between the food and water bowls. The mess was huge but well worth it. I regularly give him cups of ice that end up melting all over our hardwood floors, he’s allowed to sit (but not stand) on our coffee table, and I am not ashamed of bribing with suckers or candy when necessary. For me, letting all of these things be okay feels like quite a shift. Also, I have allowed myself to give up cooking most nights. We eat a lot of take-out and it works for us most of the time.

check out erin’s stunning photography at www.nolenphotographyblog.com.