Pregnancy - Amommymity begins

I began to really understand how motherhood was going to define me in unexpected (and often unwelcome) ways when I was pregnant. Let me start by saying pregnancy is a miraculous thing. If you stop to think about it and aren't blinded by how normal it seems since we see it so often, you realize it's amazing. A life actually begins, and then grows, inside of a mother. That is mind blowing. I am in awe that I was able to be a part of that miraculous process. However, I was never one of those women that loved being pregnant. I felt uncomfortable with it from the start of morning sickness until the end of labor. The only part I really loved was feeling the baby kick. It was a visceral reminder that a person was growing inside of me, and I couldn't help but feel joy and awe at that.

Photo by Evan Hunter

As I began to show in my first pregnancy, I realized that pregnancy is not an individual experience. Pregnant women are somehow communal property - many people feel comfortable touching them and commenting on their appearance and choices. My social interactions often became downright weird and uncomfortable. 

The first thing I noticed was that some people ignore any sense of personal space with pregnant women, and the social norm of not touching people without their consent goes away. Lots of people would greet me by rubbing and touching my belly when I was pregnant, like at the gym for example. NO ONE normally touches someone else at the gym! Yet, during both of my pregnancies at two different gyms, I was groped quite often by other gym goers. I'm actually not personally uncomfortable with being touched - as I often warn people, I'm a hugger - but it was just strange to notice that people felt no sense of the normal personal space boundaries any longer.

Second, people felt comfortable telling me what I should and should not consume. Not just people who I'm in relationship with, but total strangers. When Jeff and I went on vacation to Aruba in 2010, I was in my second trimester and starting to really show. Every morning, we went to Dunkin' Donuts to get a coffee. I ordered a small coffee, half caffeinated, half decaffeinated. I knew all the research on caffeine consumption during pregnancy, and had even abstained from caffeine during my first trimester. Once I was past my first trimester, I only had half a cup of caffeinated coffee each morning. This is well under the recommended daily limit. Yet, after I placed my order, the woman behind the counter was like, "Are you sure? That's not good for the baby." A few days later, we were out to dinner, and I ordered a steak medium-rare. The waitress responded, "You shouldn't eat rare meat when you're pregnant." Listen, ladies. I want my coffee a wee bit caffeinated and my steak medium-rare. It's not like I'm doing recreational drugs or consuming anything that is harming my baby based on research and my doctor's recommendations. And you don't even know me - I'm just amommymous to you. 

Lastly, people begin to comment on your weight and size when you are pregnant. I felt like my body was suddenly the topic of public discussion. Daily comments like, "Wow, you've really popped!" or "You're really getting big!" came from all kinds of people - family, friends, acquaintances and students. As a woman who has always been body image conscious (a topic for another blog post), this was particularly uncomfortable for me. Like it's normally extremely rude to tell a woman that she's looking large, but somehow people think it will not offend pregnant women to hear this. As people began to openly comment on my size, I found myself often making sarcastic, self-deprecating remarks about it in response to such comments and in social situations where I felt particularly conscious of my growing girth. For example, when I was in my third trimester of Anna's pregnancy, I was co-teaching a seminar on professional development for graduate students. The class was long - four hours a day, twice a week - and it met in a space that was too small for the size of the seminar. It was physically tough to teach that kind of class in my final weeks of pregnancy. I often had to ask people to move their chairs to get around the room while teaching, and would occasionally say things like, "I'm sorry, I'm kind of huge - could you scoot your chair in?" Well, our teaching evaluations for the class were outstanding. However, one student comment really haunted me. It said the following: "I thought that both of you did a wonderful job with the seminar. In fact, I think nobody should go on the job market without this. You were so organized and well-prepared. My only suggestion and I mean this in the most gentle way possible: It seemed that/or came across that Laura was a little self-conscious about her pregnancy when there was no reason to be. Sometimes she would make self-deprecating remarks about it which really didn't seem necessary when she was doing great." 

When I read that, I was angry. At first, I was angry (maybe unfairly?) at the student. Like had this person ever been pregnant, and experienced what I had? Had his or her body ever unwillingly become a daily topic of public commentary? Making the occasional self-deprecating remark was my coping mechanism, and now I was being criticized for it?

But the more I thought about it, I was angry at myself. I realized I had really let the collapsing of social norms and personal space get to me. I had let others in society define who I was based on my status as a pregnant woman and future mom. I had started to agree with remarks like, "You're really getting big!" by sarcastically apologizing for my size. And to an entire classroom full of people, too! 

One of the students in my seminar was specializing in disability studies, and her dissertation explored under what conditions people with disabilities choose to self-identify as disabled. She told me that being pregnant is actually a temporary window into what life is like for those with a disability that is visually obvious to society - people commenting on your body/condition, strangers asking personal/health questions, staring, etc. I found that observation really insightful. I would add that pregnancy is also a good crash course in preparing women for the societal judgments about moms and the choices that they make as parents. Really, pregnancy is just the start of amommymity.

Identity: Amommymous

Identity. I'm so fascinated by the concept that it became my primary focus in graduate school. What do you mean by identity, someone (like my dad) might ask? According to social identity theory, a human being's concept of self (identity) is partly defined by what groups she perceives that she belongs to. For example, some identities that have shaped my concept of self throughout my life would include white, female, and American.

So who cares about identity? I know I essentially argued that it didn't matter in my undergraduate thesis, in which I made a case that the gender gap in the Japanese political economy was not due to culture, but to institutions. Culture doesn't matter for much, so my argument went, but rather whether political and economic institutions are family friendly. Looking back, not only did I have a huge endogeneity problem, but my personal experiences were soon to prove me wrong. I left a job in New York City for an awesome job opportunity in Tokyo in 2001, and in less than a month, it was September 11, 2001. I was riding the subway to work after being up all night watching the horrifying footage of downtown New York, worrying about my former roommate/best friend and my friends and family who worked downtown. I felt like a zombie with puffy eyes from crying on and off all night, yet the Japanese women next to me on the train were discussing their children's school. I wanted to scream, "The world has changed! What is WRONG with you people! Why are you acting so NORMAL!" I never thought my American identity mattered to me. If anything, I thought of myself as an anti-patriot who was obsessed with learning foreign languages and traveling. And yet, given the right situation, I discovered my American identity mattered to me. A lot. 

For me to argue identity matters based on N=1 of myself shouldn't necessarily convince anyone it's important, though. Research in the social sciences suggests identity matters for a whole host of things. Whether people turn out to vote, who they marry, where they worship (even how they envision who they worship), how they perform in test situations - all these things are affected by social identities like race and gender. In my dissertation, I argued that under the right conditions, an exclusionary view of national identity is associated with anti-immigrant attitudes and support for xenophobic political parties. In fact, I'd argue that the importance of social identity aligns with my theology. As a disciple of Christ, I believe that the very nature of God is social, and that my identity isn't my own individually, but that I find my true self in Christ.

But this blog is not really about social science research or theology! I just want to establish that identity matters to me, and to us all, since we live in a complex social web of groups and relationships.

What this blog is about is my identity as a mommy. Most of my salient identities up until about 3 years ago were characteristics I was born with. Motherhood is a relatively new identity for me. I never grew up picturing myself as a mom. Really, the first time it occurred to me that I wanted to be a mom was about ten years ago. I had just visited my nephew during the Christmas holiday, who was an adorable infant, and left him to visit the person I was dating at that time to join him for a New Year's Eve party. We were driving to the party, and I burst into tears. Why, he (understandably) wondered, was I a blubbering mess? Well, I simply missed my nephew. He was so beautiful, so precious, so cuddly... I was crying because I couldn't believe I had left him for a lame New Year's Eve party. And so it dawned on me: I wanted to have children some day. My desire for children only grew in the years that followed. When I was nearing 30 and single, I was a part-time nanny for a lovely family during one summer in graduate school. They had a son who was about two and a half at that time, and he was just this wonderful little person. I remember watching him play at the park one day and holding back tears because my heart ached believing that it was very likely I was not going to have kids of my own. So when I was blessed to find out I was pregnant with Lydia in August of 2009, needless to say, I was super excited about my new identity as a mother. I couldn't wait to have children. And I love my girls, so it is as wonderful as - actually even more wonderful than - I had hoped.

However, it turns out, I had no idea the extent to which this newly acquired identity was going to affect me, and how weird "mother" is as an identity group. Which brings me to my point (finally!) - motherhood has a way of making me feel anonymous. It is a social category that somehow ends up defining me against my own will, and I often find myself wanting to tell people I am my own person outside of being a mommy. For example, the other day, I called my favorite bakery. I've gone there every Friday for many years to buy a scone (or three...). The woman who answered the phone said, "Great Harvest, this is Myra!" So I replied, "Hi, Myra, it's Laura." (Silence on the other line, despite the fact that Myra knows me and sees me every Friday). I continue, "I can't make it in today, but my husband said he can swing by after work, so can you put aside three maple oatmeal scones for me and a cinnamon toaster loaf?" She replies, "OH, you're LYDIA'S MOM! Hi!" Yes, I am Lydia's mom. I am so proud to be her mother, and there is nothing wrong with being known as her mom. But it just seems like all I am to some people is an anonymous mommy. Amommymous. Hence the blog's title - identity amommymous.

And it's not just other people that make me feel that I'm amommymous. It's also that I myself feel like I'm slipping into amommymity. I used to love watching, "What Not to Wear." The quintessential episode features a mom who wears the same outfit day in and day out, usually involving sweatshirts and/or sweatpants. Stacy London sits her down to watch the footage of herself every day with her hair uncombed, driving the kids around town in loungewear. And she always tearfully comes to the realization that she lost any sense of style for herself while focusing on taking care of the kids. I always watched with disdain, thinking I would never let myself become so frumpy. The other day while getting dressed it hit me - I AM that mom. Since Anna's been born, I've worn the same outfit almost every day: a nursing tank top (in white, grey or black); the one pair of jeans that fits me post-baby; and a ragged green cardigan (easy breast feeding access, good coverage, don't mind if it gets spit up on). I have no personal style any more. I don't even own a full length mirror. I've made myself amommymous.

When I told my mom I had decided that I was going to blog about this, she said, "Don't you have two kids, a house to run, and a job?" Well, yes, yes I do. But I feel compelled to explore the complex identity of motherhood. Things like parenting choices (e.g., breast feeding, sleeping arrangements), as well as how my identity as a mom intersects - and sometimes collides - with other my other identities, like wife, worker and disciple of Christ. I feel compelled to write openly about my thoughts because I hope my own daughters - who may grow up to become mothers themselves - will some day read this and come to know me as more than just their mom. When I was a pre-teen, I caught my mother crying in private. I was shocked and affronted. When I found out what had hurt her feelings, I fumed that someone would hurt her. And then it hit me - my mom was a person. She wasn't just my mom, who made my meals, did my laundry, shuttled me around to my activities, and made me clean my room. She was more than the stereotypes, which exist for all identity groups, of a "breast feeding mom," "stay-at-home mom" or "soccer mom." She was her own person with thoughts and feelings. She had a tender heart and could be hurt. I think our children see us as amommymous - I know I saw my mom that way for most of my childhood. I try my hardest to be a good role model, sacrificing myself for my daughters' well-being, which often involves striving not to burden my children with my weaknesses, failures and vulnerabilities. But I am hoping my daughters will know me as more than a "breast feeding mom" or a "working mom," and understand the complexity of the choices I made and the ambivalence I often feel about those choices. I am hoping by writing my thoughts down, some day when they are ready, my daughters will read this and know me as more than just a mommy.