do i even actually want this?
I have yet another fabulous podcast episode to recommend (How to heal your Mom Rage on Your Parenting Mojo), and this time I want to highlight something Minna Dubin, author of Mom Rage: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood calls "The PR Team":
The PR team is basically the cultural messaging that we get around the expectations of motherhood, of what a mother should be, and the messaging that tells us that mothering is good, and that if you want to be a good woman, then you should want to be a mother... the PR team also tells us...what makes a good mother...that might be making lunches that look really beautiful in bento boxes with five different sections that you've created, or making sure that you're always there at bedtime, or that you stay home for a year before you put your kid in daycare, even though there's no family leave that's paid for a year...So we sacrifice all this stuff in order to meet this bar that's been created by we don't know who. But we internalize it. And we think it's what we want and what's best, but we don't exactly know why we think it's what's best.
So how is this depressing info useful? How does knowing that we're being incepted by an evil PR Team help us escape its effects?
1) It's not your fault
Knowing that the rage we sometimes feel (that seems to come from out of the blue, that we feel sooo guilty about having) is a natural consequence of the PR Team telling us that we are supposed to be "needless creatures." We are somehow supposed to attend to everyone else and then also do "self care" so we are happy and breezy. Anyone who suppresses their own needs over and over, in the name of reaching an unachievable goal, will, at some point, get really angry! Just knowing that the game is rigged can make losing (or toppling the card table) a little more fun.
2) An Invitation
The PR agency idea can be an invitation into self-exploration. The next time you really want something or feel like you really should want something or do something, take a minute to stop and breathe. Literally, stop, sit, close your eyes, breathe. Ask "do I even actually want this?" and see if what's coming from inside of you. This can be about "Good Parent" related things, but also about choices surrounding Thanksgiving and other traditions, how you spend your time, your money, and more.
I'm even reexamining my crush on Taylor Hanson from back in 1998. Was I, 16-year-old Sarah, really attracted to him? Or was he just sort of shoved down my throat as "hot" by the PR team and I internalized it as my own feelings?
These are deep questions to which I may never know the answer.
What are you reconsidering? What tradition, expectation, demand, self-evaluation, crush might you shed in the name of being PR Team-influence-free?
