I started commenting on Rootie's post - about whether her 'omega' reactions to the 'alpha mom' phenomenon was just good old-fashioned envy - and my comment was turning into a long-winded post, so I've made it a long-winded post here on my own blog instead. Not what I was going to babble on about today, but whatever!

Rootie reckoned that it suddenly hit her that much of her ranting criticism was born out of envy - that if she'd had the money, hell, she would have hired a nanny too!

My thoughts are that, hmmm, maybe there's an element of envy in the Omega Reaction, but again, even that is individual. My reaction, for example, is not a 'financial' one, but, I do confess, there's a bit of that monster lurking.

I believe we all react 'uniquely' due to our own 'baggage'. Because I haven't worked (yet!) since I had kids, I am mostly hypersensitive to those mums that do, because they look to be so much more effective than me! - what with balancing a career and motherhood... I am always looking for 'reasons' why they appear to be able to "do it" where I can't. (And I can relate only if they admit to other self-perceived "failings". If they don't, I need to pick out the differences in our circumstances because only that makes me feel better.)

The reality is that most who look like they are 'doing it all' manage only with the 'village' that whatshername mentions in 'that' article. Extended family: minding the children while you go to work. Or go shopping! (Pfft! - the grandparents of my kids are hundreds of miles away, but even if they weren't, my mother wouldn't have, and I wouldn't have asked her.)... The husband not working away for days/weeks at a time like mine was... The husband finishing work by 4.30/5.00 so they can share in the afternoon 'stuff' with the kids: I still get stirrings of envy when I see the dads picking up their kids from school and taking them to whatever is on after school. 3.00?! How do they do it?!... The husband actually being home in time for dinner with the rest of the family, even. "Your husband is home by 6.00?! I'd just about faint if mine got home from work by then!" ...Paying a lot of money for long day care, or nannies (not that I saw much of the nanny thing in my social circle!) - no, well, I couldn't afford a nanny even if I wanted to... Or what still gets up my nose, getting non-working suckers like me to take their kid somewhere for them because they 'have to work' - Hello! I choose not to work, but not to be a taxi driver for other people's kids. We don't live beyond our means.. we have never owned a new car.. haven't felt like we just HAD to have a pool.. or resort holidays... etc etc.. (you get the picture?...) Yes, yes, I know that many are doing it much tougher financially, and they need to work.. but.. just don't make me feel inferior because I don't work, ok!)

Then I'd see single parents doing it all on their own. The only 'excuse' I could come up with for me then was that I was single part of the time and partnered part of the time, and couldn't get into a routine!!! *Ahem*. And, sheesh, well, many of those single parents get time out from the kids when their ex takes the kids! (Yep, I've really been desperate for excuses!)

Well, really, when I was honest with myself, all I could really do is take my hat off to them. And take my hat off to the many working mums, who, even with an ever 'present' husband, in the majority, still do most of the domestic 'management'. I knew that me trying to do that would tip me over the edge, because I'm just not that good!

Personally, I can't admit to feeling the financial 'envy' about being able to afford babysitters, nannies, sleep consultants!... With slightly more 'spaced apart' kids, and with no really bad sleep issues, no, I didn't have it quite so tough as some, although looking back I think I've actually managed a lot of it on my own quite well, thank you very much.

Somewhere in that first year, even though I didn't set out to do it, I realised that I wanted to be the primary caregiver; I didn't want to outsource that part to anyone else. A few times when they were little I considered the notion of going back to work, and I'd start crying because I didn't WANT to.. I couldn't bear the thought of putting them in childcare a few days a week. (And I was very lucky that financially, we could manage that.) Maybe part of that was because I didn't have the career drive (and thus the earning capacity from a high powered job)I turned it into a matter of pride that I could do it 'on my own' - so to speak. I don't know!!

Mind you, I did explore family day care for one day a week when my first baby was about 12 months old. I didn't have any paid work, but as we'd been owner building a house (doing all the work themselves), I felt I actually could have done with a bit of time out - emotionally - and I thought if I could have one day a week where I could work on the house - painting or whatever...(rather than me finding a job, then paying a painter with the proceeds.) The Family Day Care coordinator I struck was incredibly rude. It wasn't that I wasn't 'eligible' for it, but because I wasn't working, I was certainly not a priority. She could have stopped there, but she had to imply that I didn't NEED it, only REAL working mothers needed it. Besides which, 'it would be better for the child to be in 2 or 3 days than just one'. One day would be detrimental to the child's emotional state! Apparently! I do still remember getting off the phone and bursting into tears for the way she made me feel... and I think the bad way she handled my enquiry very nearly did push me into a nervous breakdown, because I really was very borderline on needing some time out. If I had been any closer to the 'edge', I don't like to imagine the consequences... and looking back, I think there was a period when my baby might well have been better off emotionally had her mummy had one day - 6 hours! - without her. Mummy would have felt like she'd contributed more to the building of the house, and .. yes, well.. a lot of things...

Hmmm, so anyway, my "envy" is not so much the money issue. When my husband worked overseas for 3 months straight one year, we did say that I was 'earning' the money as much as him, and that I should at the very least pay someone to mow the lawn. It wasn't that we couldn't afford it, but I was so stubborn, I wanted to be able to prove that I could do it - without support. I could walk up and down pushing a bloody lawn mower! It was a matter of pride to me that because I wasn't trying to work as well, I should be able to do everything else. (Even when each time I got the mower out I'd nearly have a breakdown because it was very temperamental to start!) It's a pity I don't have the same pride thing about the housework - but at the same time, pride wouldn't let me get in a cleaner at that time as well. Nor now, even though we could probably afford that too! The house is just a debacle and it would be too embarrassing for anyone to see at close quarters my failings in that department.

So I am wondering if, yes, perhaps my reaction to this 'alpha mum' thing is because the term 'alpha' makes me think that they "think" they are 'better', somehow. To use a Dooce-ism, it's as if this whole alpha thing is about striving to be the 'valedictorian' of mummyhood.

And we who have reacted latch on to an area that we don't feel strong in, or choose not to - for whatever reasons we have. With me it's working. Yes, I feel inadequate because I have kind of stuffed up in the career department!! Or doing stuff like preparing the meals with my children since they were 2 (because even though it sounds like a wonderful thing to bring your children up to do, I just wouldn't have the patience for it!). Or having an immaculate house, and a trim, taut, terrific body.

With others, it's stuff like "Yeah, well, I could look that 'alpha' if I could have afforded to have paid a nanny", or had the time and money to go to the gym... Or they say 'just because your kids do a lot of organised sport/activities afterschool (and I choose not to) DOESN'T MEAN YOU ARE BETTER THAN ME!

The term 'alpha' somehow implies striving to be 'the best'.. and when, in our own eyes, we don't measure up to the hype, the examples, the 'advice columns', then we feel inadequate, and that old green eyed monster peers over the shoulder and whispers stuff into our ears that we really should know is rubbish.

Labels: Omega

While I'm in an Omega mood, I have to write about something that gets me all 'grrrr', so that I have to fight off the "is there something wrong with me" heebie jeebies.

It's the generalising of women in regard to their typical habits, and likes and dislikes. Sometimes you see it in the jokey emails doing the rounds, and other times people just drop it into conversation. I probably get more annoyed when women do it, because I think they should know better that as a gender we have so many individual differences!

At the school recently I opted to buy tickets in a raffle for the fruit & veg tray rather than the basket of body products. The (very annoying) woman from the front office tried to talk me into the basket.. "What woman wouldn't love this..."... My response: "Well, me, actually - I hate all that stuff!!"

For the record, I am woman (hear me roar), but I don't like:

• makeup. I hate having to get the damn stuff off. Especially off my eyes. Foundation never works on me.. first I look like a clown, then it seems to wear off me quicker than any other woman.
• perfume - it makes me sneeze
• baths - I get bored!
• perfumed baths - boring and smelly!
• fancy underwear - the lace is scratchy, I need to wear cotton undies because otherwise I get thrush, (so I've never seen any sexy lingerie in cotton) and what's the point in putting some fancy bra on that doesn't support you if you need to move at more than a snail's pace? (I'm all about comfort!)
• all those fancy skin products. I stick to sorbolene and cetaphil.
• high heeled shoes - I can't walk in them! I get excruciatingly sore feet (I need to wear orthotics in my normal shoes) - and even if I managed to get through an evening with the agony of the feet, it would throw my back or hips out, so I'd be up for more chiropractor visits than normal.

There are other 'characteristics' usually attributed to 'all women' that tend to annoy me, but I'll stick with my practical list for the moment...

I know that there are similar generalisations made about men, so I'm not just getting all on my feminist high horse here... (I growl to myself when women bag their husbands for misdemeanours that they attribute to their husband being simply a male, rather than his particular personality.)

So the next time you are about to say 'What woman wouldn't like...' - think again! If I said 'What woman wouldn't want to ride 450 km on a tandem with her daughter' you'd think I was nuts, but I'd rather do that than wear or use any of the above!

Does anyone else react to these generalisations, or is it just me?!!

Labels: Omega, opinion

So I have 'joined' Omega Women Untie because I'm not perfect, and I'm (trying to be) proud of it!

It was formed as a response to the self-labelled 'Alpha-Moms' - basically Type A women who do it all - career, family, and they do it so perfectly. Supposedly.

In the hyper-competitive 'mommy world' out there, it is somewhat of a relief to know there are other mothers, other women, out there who don't practise this multi-tasking perfectly. Rootie and Northern Girl coined the term 'Omega' moms in response to some recent articles on self-titled Alpha Moms that just tipped them over the edge.. the one who scheduled 'debriefing' time with her husband was what clinched it for NG, and I can tell you that floored me as well.

I don't know, we could have identified as Beta or Delta mums.. but Omega at the end of the greek alphabet denotes the ultimate contrast to Alpha, does it not? (Actually, so I've discovered, the term Omega literally means 'great'.. or 'o-great'... which I think is a delicious irony!)

So, I'm all signed up, because I can't cope with the Alpha yummy mummy types that make you feel inferior. Most of us have some areas that we acknowledge that we are doing ok in.. even doing GREAT in... and other areas in which we suck! These areas are different for all of us - the key is, we acknowledge that we can't do it all, and that that's OK!

So what's Omega about me?

Well, so far - for the past 14 years in fact - I've been a SAHM.. but I don't fit the domestic goddess mould of the classic stay at home mother. Oh, I've baked a few cakes and cookies in my time, and done a bit of help up at the school, but so inconsistently now I am sure I am talked about as being a slacko: "You'd think she could be up at the school more often.. she doesn't even WORK, and look at me, I work 4 days a week, and yet I come and help every Friday on my day off..."

I haven't worked since having the kids because for the last 10 years my husband has worked away a lot for his work - anything from a few nights to a few months at a time - and while I could have attempted to do the single parent working thing, I probably would have lost my sanity at the same time. (I've just about lost my sanity anyway!) I consider myself lucky that our financial situation has allowed me to not work - but at the same time I feel like a failure because I don't have a career.

I used to enjoy cooking, now I find it a chore. I loathe cleaning, and I'm crap at it. The house is out of control because while the husband and I aren't tidy freaks, the kids have just taken us over the edge- and, um, did I mention I hate cleaning!

I've refused to use star charts and the like for getting the children to do things, preferring to chip away at the idea that they will gradually absorb the concept of being contributing members to a household without being specifically rewarded for every little thing they do. So far that's not been an outstanding success, but I still can't face making the house like a classroom. And I'm so disorganised I couldn't keep track of pocket money tied to chores even if I wanted to! At any rate, we somehow managed to pass on 'smart' genes, and 'sporty' genes, so outside the house they look like high-achievers without too much alpha-input from us at all!

I'm a sook because while I didn't set out to be this way, I like being 'there' for the kids when they come home from school, and I'm still not ready for them (particularly the youngest) to be by themselves for hours after school. I'm the epitomy of the 'Mum's Taxi' brigade, because the kids do play a lot of sport and stuff after school (a reaction, I think, to the limitations put on what I was allowed to try as a kid), and anyway, where the hell would I find a 9-3 job round here? And what would I do? I've got a degree, but who would employ me?

But quite often I feel like we've gone overboard in the 'organised activities' and the kids don't know how to roam the neighbourhood and make their own fun. I now have been known to have to leave one or two at home while I drive another one to this, that or the other... so work that one out! I'm just full of contradictions.

I've had an 'average' struggle with my weight since having kids... Never a gym junkie, yummy mummy type, I never made the time to exercise obsessively when the kids were little - and I wasn't the body type that just lost the weight the minute I dropped the baby! I've mostly flirted with being around 10 kg "overweight", so I'm playing catch up now before it gets out of hand. I'm simply trying to combine a sensible weight loss with involving the whole family in the sort of activities that drew my husband and I together in the first place - hence Big bike rides that make us look like we're hyper-achievers when we really just like rising to a bit of a challenge and proving we can do it. (If 1000 others can, so can we!) And when you're doing that, you can eat whatever you damn well like without feeling guilty about it! There's a method to our madness.

So while I might seem obsessed about my weight at the moment, I am basically just wanting to get myself back into a 'normal weight range' for my height, for health reasons, and for my mental well-being. I've discovered that exercise endorphins are probably underrated in treatment for 'down' feelings, so if I can tap into that source, it's got to be cheaper than therapy!

I hate make up, high heels, perfume, bubble baths, long hair.. perhaps I should have been a bloke! I"m not even an alpha woman let alone an alpha mum!

And while I've been sitting here typing this up, I haven't put the washing on and it's already just about 1pm. We slept in again today.. what an Easter.. haven't got up before 9 am any day. The eldest needs new clothes (wish she'd stop growing, dammit!) but neither of us have shifted from the computer to go into the shops. I don't know what her excuse is.. but I've STILL got period cramps, so I'm having another non-multi-tasking sook day.

The other thing I want to mention is that of the other Omega women I 'know' so far (and I still have to catch up with others who have joined) each of them inspire me in some area of motherhood or womanhood. No, none of us are perfect, but we all still have a lot to be proud of!

Labels: Omega, parenting