Proud to be "just a mum"

Daisy Waugh today launched an attack on us “simpering mums” That we are two faced niceness searching for “a relentless quest for respectability, seemliness, conformity and one-dimensional perfection” It starts to strike me that perhaps feminism has gone too far the opposite way. What’s wrong with wanting to be a good mum and only viewing yourself as a mum or a housewife? Both are bloody hard jobs! What’s wrong with manners? They’re bloody useful! If anyone asks me what I do I’m proud to say a mum! A mum incorporates many hats and for women to continuously keep saying we’re more than “just a mum” we’re this we’re that we are our own individual…UGH! What is wrong with being a mum? I adore it. Yes there are bad days but hey you get those in the office. Yes you do get addressed and even put in friends mobiles as such and suchs mums but surely that’s one of the joys of being as mum. You have a little human being totally devoted and dependant on you, You get to watch that child, You get to shape it likes and dislikes, You get to help form its personality. You get to experience the full spectrum of emotions through being “just a mum” You get to watch this tiny humans first steps, their first words, their first steps in the adult world, you can become their best friend! Being just a mum you get to see their face light up when you walk in the room. The person they go to whenever they have a problem, whenever they want to celebrate! You get to share that with them for free!  When Daisy finished her article saying it’s bad for our happiness and for our children too the thought struck me that I doubt she could be happy in anything she did. That perhaps it’s her views on life which needs to be changed to be happy not the way she feels everyone else views her?

This thought struck my last year at Britmums Live 2012. Very stupidly I slipped into a wrong session. The one on “can we have it all” only to hear the head speaker inform us she was shocked and disappointed in herself that her daughter at 15 wanted to be married when she grew up, wanted to be a mum. She felt she had failed herself and her daughter! Goodness me what more does she want her to become? Someone who works in an office only interested in material objects as she was?! Why wouldn’t you want your son or daughter to want to have a family to love all of her own or a partner to love and adore who will love and adore you back?!

Every year a new book comes out about how to have the perfect home, the perfect meals, the perfect lifestyle, none of which feature going out every week to get drunk in a pub with your mates rather than staying at home with a group of people who love and adore you!

I have learnt more and discovered more through “just being a mum” and would recommend it to anyone. I am no longer as selfish as I was, I have more patience, I find joys in the simplest of things not just in far flung holidays or new shiny cars!

Personally I think it’s time to throw my back to feminism and being more than a mum or housewife. I adore it, love it and proud to say Yes I’m a mum and I’m more than a suit in the office!