“Should I feel bad about that?”

Every now and then people tell me to not feel guilty about something or “there’s no shame in that,” and I can’t help looking at them like they’re a bit off because, honestly, I never thought of feeling guilty or ashamed of that part of my life. Trust me, there is plenty I don’t like about myself. I am my harshest critic. But there is also plenty I really don’t worry about, and I wonder why other people do. Here are a few things I don’t think I should feel bad about, and I don’t think any other person should, whether they are happy walrus moms or happy walruses without children or just happy whatevers:

1. Not being the size of a walrus. I am skinny. Undoubtedly.  My BMI is right above underweight. There is no denying I am un-walruslike when it comes to blubber. I simply have none. That’s why I wear multiple sweaters and shiver a lot. That is also why random strangers call me “skinny bitch” which I think is really rude. If anyone should be ashamed, it is them. Rude behavior is bad. Being skinny is not. I used to work with a woman who literally pinched me on a regular basis and would ask me if I had eaten. I was always tempted to pinch her back, but I didn’t BECAUSE THAT IS RUDE. If she is obsessed with my weight, that is her issue, not mine. I don’t feel guilty about being thinner than her.
   
2. Living in an apartment. We own a house, so this one is weird. When we moved, we didn’t have a ton of time and didn’t know how permanent our move would be. Renting is the best option. And I really don’t see a problem with it for us or other families like ours, yet, for some reason, people have said to me when I tell them we live in an apartment, “ohhhh, there’s no shame in that.” Huh? Who feels shame? I like our apartment. It is a heck of a lot easier to maintain than a house. I don’t have to do yard work for one thing, but the girls get a sweet playground and tons of kids to play with. And it fits our budget. Why would I feel ashamed that we made the best decision for our family considering our current circumstances? A couple years ago, buying a house seemed like the best choice. Now renting an apartment does. No shame. People are weird.
   
3. Having two kids. It seems like no matter what number of children a person has, there will always be someone who thinks a different number would be better. For people who know our family and know the challenges we have faced over the last few years, this has never been a question. However, there are still people who do ask me about it and ask why I didn’t welcome more lives into our family. This is a personal issue and really people should back off. Do I feel bad that I didn’t have more? No. I know why we have two and that is all that matters.
   
4. Sewing and cooking and being a stay-at-home-mom. Really, people? You want me to feel guilty about cooking dinner now? Blarg. I was raised by a couple of feminists, so the thought of being anything other than a feminist is just super foreign to me. When people tell me I am anti-feminist and ask me if I feel bad about setting a bad example for my daughters by being "a little wifey", I don’t feel bad for me, but I do feel bad for them. And I kind of want to punch them. But I don’t. Because that would be rude. If you have never watched the series Makers on PBS, I recommend it. It shows the history of the feminist movement in an interesting way including the choices women now face between full time work and being a stay-at-home-mom. Being a stay-at-home-mom is a choice.  It doesn’t mean rejecting female education, opportunity, employment, or any other form of equality. I sew because I enjoy it. I cook because it is the most cost effective way to get food into my children. I am a stay-at-home-mom because I am raising my children and for our family having me home is the best way to get that job done. And I like it. My daughters know and understand all that. So to the people who look at me with their judgey eyes,  I look right back with my confident eyes. I know all the reasons I am here, and I stand firmly behind my choice and do not feel bad. Plus I have awesome kids who eat salads. So pht. (OK, so that last part was a little rude.)
   

The sad truth is that no matter what kinds of walruses we are, there will always be someone who thinks we should be a seagull. What I try to teach my girls is to be confident in their decisions. No one else will know all the details that go into their decision making processes. People just see the end results. The girls need to stand by their choices and not feel they have to explain them to others or be ashamed of who they are, where they live, how many kids they do or do not have, or how they spend their time (as long as they aren’t breaking any laws or being rude going around pinching skinny people). They will much happier if they can stand up and say, “this is me and I’m ok with that.” As the saying goes, “the best accessory is confidence.”

Ukrainian Enough?

Sure fire way to piss me off is to start talking about whether or not my kids are Ukrainian enough. I hate that. I hate the whole idea of measuring someone’s ethnicity in general, but this particular term really irks me. For one thing, it is usually applied in an inconsistent way. Usually the person who is telling me – the non-Ukrainian parent – what is or is not Ukrainian enough is wrong herself and is basing her ideas about Ukrainian-ness on her experience growing up in the diaspora. Example: “REAL Ukrainians don’t put ketchup on holubtsi.” This is a pretty undisputed fact within the diaspora, however in modern Ukraine ketchup is common and is put on a lot of foods including sometimes holubtsi. I've witnessed it first hand and don't understand why it is a big deal to say it happens. The problem for me with the “Ukrainian enough” statement is two pronged. First, I don’t want anyone narrowly defining my kids. Second, their criteria are outdated and inaccurate to begin with.

Learning through experience, walking around
Chernivtsi, Ukraine with her dad's cousin and friend.

What do we do instead of throwing varenyky at people who say stuff like that to us? We hug our daughters and make a big fuss about how wonderful MY side of the family is. We on my side aren’t Ukrainian at all, but we’re still pretty dang fantastic. Then my husband teaches them how to speak and read Ukrainian. Disney princesses speak Ukrainian, too (we get our movies from Ukraine). We decorate our home with a mix of the different cultures – Ukrainian, Polish, Irish, and anything else we like. And most importantly we take the girls physically to Ukraine. The REAL Ukraine. The best way for them to know what real Ukrainians do and do not do is for them to go there and spend time just hanging out with Ukrainians. I’m not going to tell my girls that Ukrainians don’t eat ketchup because I know they do. Ukrainians are modern people who like foods that taste yummy. They also watch tv and drive cars and wear tennis shoes. They aren’t all named Tanya and Taras. They give their kids names they like which are sometimes traditional Slavic names and sometimes they aren’t. They listen to rap music and pop music and sometimes traditional folk music. They don’t all drink horilka or wear head scarves. They are a variety of religions with a variety of political view points. Some like the west and some like the east and some don’t have an opinion (just like Americans!). Not everyone owns an embroidered shirt, and there are people in Adidas who love their country even more than the most embroidered, blue-and-yellow-ed, flower wreathed person you can find. Learning the old traditions is great, but it doesn't define being Ukrainian any more than apple pie and baseball define being American.

That is what we want our girls to know and understand. Being proud of Ukraine and being proud of America don’t mean fitting in one tiny cubby. Both are great countries with many wonderful traditions, and both are dynamic countries which are growing and changing with the times. The people are adapting and eating ketchup in both places, and that’s fine. As long as they don’t get it on their hot dogs. That’s just not Chicagoan enough. ;)

a mix - Irish shepherd's pie with Ukrainian insignia and curry seasoning

“Are you having fun, Mom? Are the people being nice?”

I love when the tables turn and my girls pat my hand and ask me how my day was. They are so fascinated that I have a life sometimes. Since we moved states, that table turning has been spinning so much we have equalized a bit which is nice. It gives me some credibility when I tell them to get out there and make friends if they see that I have to do the same. For them, getting out there means school and sports. For me, it means chatting with the other parents at their schools and sports. And volunteering.

I was raised to see volunteering as something we just do. Like eating or sleeping or brushing our teeth. If I can help, I should simply because that is the decent human thing to do. All of the grown-ups I knew, whether they were working full-time jobs or not, whether they got recognition for their service or not, simply volunteered when they could. It was never a big deal, never about pressure or for show. As a mom, though, I see that not everyone else views it that way. And it is a bit of a crazy world.

When I was a working mom, I felt a TON of pressure to volunteer more. I felt I had to prove I was still an involved parent. Who I thought I had to prove this to, I’m not sure. Maybe the random haters who would talk loudly at the other tables in the lunch room about “the trouble with parents these days is that they work too much and leave their kids to be raised by strangers” (even though it was my father who was doing the bulk of the daycare, so I really should have shrugged that off)? Maybe it was the other parents at the preschool who would brag about knowing all the teachers on a first name basis (even though my mom was a teacher there so technically I knew them all, too, and should have shrugged that one off as well)? Who knows. But I felt like I had to be doing more. Which was dumb. All I had to be doing was loving my kids and taking care of them. Screw what the other parents thought about me.

As a SAHM, I know I could feel pressure to out perform the other SAHMs, but I’m not going to. I’ve grown-up a bit. Sure, I still care what people think of me. I just don’t let it totally rule me (and never totally did . . . I did say no to a lot of volunteering even as a working mom – I just felt bad about it then and don’t feel bad about it now). I am meeting new groups of moms these days and keep getting the same advice: don’t over-volunteer. Great advice. But my mom already gave me that advice many years ago which is why even when I did feel pressured to do so, I didn’t give in. My mom said pick one or two areas to volunteer in and stick to those. Being helpful means not being exhausted or resentful. It means not burning the candle at both ends. 

my mom's advice, but in Ron Swanson's words (from here)

And when I feel I have too much on my plate or my health is bad or my back hurts too much, IT IS OK TO SAY NO. Taking care of my health and my family comes first. If I don’t do that, then someone else would have to. I smile at the moms who tell me not to over-volunteer, then listen to them tell me how over-involved they are. I know they are talking more to themselves than to me. They don’t know me, so they don’t know that I will certainly NOT be leading a garden club ever nor will I ever take over as treasurer of anything simply because I feel like I ought to. I don’t think I owe it to the working mothers to “pick up their slack” by volunteering twice as much (that just insults working mothers who I really don’t think need extra insults). I don’t think I need to have something scheduled for every day. I don’t think it is my duty to put in community service hours because I am not bringing in a paycheck. Nope.

my NO face....it gets used plenty

I volunteer when an opportunity comes up that I think fits me. Something I think I can do well. Like teaching catechism classes. Or working at the book fair. Or being a hall monitor. And recently I have been volunteering to meet new people and make new friends here in our new state.  If they are going to use my volunteerism as a yardstick, however, for my goodness as a mom, I’ll pass. I think we should all be old enough now to stop judging each other like that and just be moms together, regardless of how many volunteer hours we’re logging. Can’t we just focus on what really matters? Who’s bringing the coffee to the next meeting?!?!?!