The Invisible Woman

Has anyone else seen this video? I have. I actually found it on the blog of some really cheesy person I knew in high school. She was one of my best "church" friends until I realized how to use Party line. Remember the high school scandals of party line? well she said this story really helped her on a bad day. So watch, then come back for a chat. I always had a hard time with the really churchy girls- I didn't really think people could be that sweet. I think I've met some people who are genuinely good and sweet now but it certainly wasn't the case then.
But I guess people are often a little shaky in high school.
OK this post did not make me feel better the first time I saw it. It made me want to throw up. a lot. I feel like this is like the people who say that they have a job being a mom. You know, some moms do have to work at a job with a W2 form and everything. That is a separate issue though.
Being a stay at home mom can be thankless drudgery, but that doesn't mean you have to pretend it is something other than that. Today Danielle came to tell me she peed all over the floor right after I went upstairs to get screaming Mark- I put on a show so I could feed the baby. I had to decide if I should get the baby and feed him or clean up the urine first. Because I got to do both.
The last thing on my mind was cathedrals.
If my husband and kids ignored me like this blessed saint I would be pissed. I would probably do something about it instead of retreating to some fantasy world where I can imagine my problems away.
This also made me think of the gargoyles on the cathedrals- do you know that some of the faces on the cathedrals are pretty accurate depictions of how people looked at the time? The sculptors would work in pairs and sculpt the person working next to them. Some of those sculptures can help you understand what type of nutritional deficiencies common laborers had at the time. So next time you look just remember, not all of them are invisible, and some of them are just not very pretty.
Just like moms.
It makes me furious sometimes being a mom. There are lots of people who pat themselves on the back no matter what they do, but this is a group with very few real guidelines for success. They have found that people who go to schools with no grade system have less motivation to learn- I think being a parent can be like that. For the most part you are on your own trying to find others you can relate to.
Maybe you can find them in books about manual laborers and artists in past centuries.
I can't, and I don't want to be able to.

may your struggles as a mother never be trivialized by trite comparisons.