Thinking About -

Thinking about-

This idea of "real motherhood." What does that even mean? I see it everywhere- be authentic, be honest, be real. What I just don't understand about this rallying cry is how the term "real" can even apply to such an individual experience. It seems obvious; what's real for you isn't real for me. We see this all over social media- one woman presents a clean house and well-dressed children. Not real. A messy house and goes on about how hard motherhood can be? Real. But perhaps the first woman just makes keeping a clean home a priority, right? And furthermore, I don't believe that anything you see or read about in a social media outlet is real either, it's carefully crafted or curated to be a level of real presented to you, the audience, on both sides of the coin. The clever caption was formulated with you in mind, so is that reality? It's what I/you want to put out there; what we want this image or moment to be perceived as. I recently came across a blog post posting photos of messy rooms, proclaiming, "this is real motherhood!" and encouraging others to embrace the same, all the while suggesting that anything other than this might even be damaging to other mothers. Is it up to the content producer to put a disclaimer on what they share, reminding viewers that this is just a piece of it? Or should that be the responsibility of the viewer? Substitute any other label and think about how odd that would be- encouraging other women to be an authentic wife or an authentic daughter, suggesting that because one woman shares certain pieces of her life deemed appropriately "real", then she is then living in a real way. I feel like trying to constantly tell woman what real is, and to then telling them to be it, is so incredibly anti-feminist. And I know that everyone has a different view of what the word feminist is in the first place, but on the social and emotional side of it I strongly believe that every woman doing what they believe to be true, without anyone else imposing their own beliefs on them, is paramount. And having the FREEDOM to do so, that is what's important. It's a huge step back and I'd venture to even say patriarchal, to ever try and tell another woman how their life should be lived, online or off. It's painting a picture and calling it real, while pointing at another and saying it's not. Social media and the like blur this a bit though, because there's this wide gamut of viewer's perspective added into everything now; how you present something is going to be perceived by different individuals, all with separate interpretations. And if we really want to use the term real anyway, every single bit that's put out there about motherhood IS real, because it's someone's truth, even just in a moment. It's a circular discussion that could go around and around, but it still goes back to a very simple idea; live and let live.

And then of course, on the much more important side of telling women how to live (and that deserves much more than just this second little paragraph), is what you're seeing all over the news right now. It's the idea of religious beliefs, or rather, being able use that belief about how someone should live to control what types of birth control are available to them...if you're their employer. Essentially corporations' rights are now above women's rights- but it goes beyond that, because now, there's been a precedent set that completely ignores any separation of church and state, at least if we're talking about a "safe" religion. If you believe in something strongly (paraphrased), then you as a company (because you're a person now, duh) are able to practice said beliefs, even though it may be discriminatory. Scary, right? I know where I will be come November.

So yes, that's what I'm thinking about right now. I'd love to hear your thoughts too.



Read more posts on "real motherhood" via Lindsay and Lauren.
Read more about the Supreme Court ruling here.

p.s. I used the word real up there 18 times. It's a new record!