Great interview! The "what do you do" question has bedeviled me so much I wrote about it. To quote:
"I heard a story about a woman, the wife of a professor, who gave up her own academic career to stay home with her kids. At university events, she was often asked: “What do you do?”
Her honest response - “I stay home with my kids” - was met with disinterest and dismissal often enough that she changed the answer, mostly to entertain herself and manage her indignation.
“My brother and his wife were killed in a horrible accident and I’m raising their children.”
She was suddenly the center of attention, a noble and generous heroine. It’s interesting commentary about the value placed on our work. Raising our own kids, we are unpaid and underappreciated. Raising someone else’s, we are exalted (though still generally unpaid). Our currency is tied either to paychecks or saintliness. I had neither."
such a good, powerful interview and I feel we are just brushing the surface of so many topics that need unearthed to service the next generation of mothers, to give them something better than the puzzle we're living.
I find myself drawn to lots of “mindful” and “natural” momfluencer content, but thinking about the reality of taking and promoting the pictures generally ruins the content for me. They’re talking about how healthy it is for kids to get into nature and have wild play, but then they’re capturing the “magic” moments and putting them on IG. It’s so antithetical to everything they’re promoting.
What a fantastic interview!!! I was unfamiliar with Kelly Havens Stickle until this, but wow. I have to say that after the first "cute dresses, cute kids, perfect happy family, good Christian wife/mom" impression, something strikes me as off, like maybe too perfect--staged--Stepford wife-y. Could just be me. Maybe it was thinking about all that must go into photographing all of this, and getting perfect shots to post. How many did she have to take to capture this weedy expression (and did she get her equipment all dirty doing it)? https://www.instagram.com/p/CgunYgIpkm1/
Great interview! The "what do you do" question has bedeviled me so much I wrote about it. To quote:
"I heard a story about a woman, the wife of a professor, who gave up her own academic career to stay home with her kids. At university events, she was often asked: “What do you do?”
Her honest response - “I stay home with my kids” - was met with disinterest and dismissal often enough that she changed the answer, mostly to entertain herself and manage her indignation.
“My brother and his wife were killed in a horrible accident and I’m raising their children.”
She was suddenly the center of attention, a noble and generous heroine. It’s interesting commentary about the value placed on our work. Raising our own kids, we are unpaid and underappreciated. Raising someone else’s, we are exalted (though still generally unpaid). Our currency is tied either to paychecks or saintliness. I had neither."
https://open.substack.com/pub/longmiddle/p/what-do-you-do?r=j2fm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
such a good, powerful interview and I feel we are just brushing the surface of so many topics that need unearthed to service the next generation of mothers, to give them something better than the puzzle we're living.
soooooo good!
Such a fun and fantastic conversation. And a hopeful message about professional perseverance -- and being introspective about one’s motivations.
I find myself drawn to lots of “mindful” and “natural” momfluencer content, but thinking about the reality of taking and promoting the pictures generally ruins the content for me. They’re talking about how healthy it is for kids to get into nature and have wild play, but then they’re capturing the “magic” moments and putting them on IG. It’s so antithetical to everything they’re promoting.
What a fantastic interview!!! I was unfamiliar with Kelly Havens Stickle until this, but wow. I have to say that after the first "cute dresses, cute kids, perfect happy family, good Christian wife/mom" impression, something strikes me as off, like maybe too perfect--staged--Stepford wife-y. Could just be me. Maybe it was thinking about all that must go into photographing all of this, and getting perfect shots to post. How many did she have to take to capture this weedy expression (and did she get her equipment all dirty doing it)? https://www.instagram.com/p/CgunYgIpkm1/