Something I Haven’t Been Able To Figure Out

I often get asked when I’m going back to work. The answer is usually “I don’t know”. In my culture, it’s kind of a given that I’ll go through a phase of staying home with my daughter rather than continue chasing a career while she’s young. While the amount of time is indetermined, it’s usually implied that it’ll be until she starts going to school for full days. For many women in my situation, it’s longer than that. I have a friend of a friend who is “off for the kids” and they’re in secondary school.

I don’t think it’s lazy or anything. I really admire her. The teenage years are a challenging time in which I certainly wouldn’t want to feel like I was abandoning my daughter. I was a teenager quite recently — I wouldn’t have wanted to feel abandoned either. I’m just not sure I have the right personality to be “off for the kids” until they’re almost adults. Making the (admittedly slightly ableist) assumption that my daughter and her theoretical siblings are neurotypical and physically healthy, which this woman’s are, it feels extreme. Even if she’s happy, I have lots of questions. Does she miss her old job? Does she stay in touch with her coworkers, and how do they make time to see each other? What does she do in her spare time now that she has more than I do?

Though I try not to compare myself to others, I look at the day-to-day activities of the mothers I’m acquainted with to understand them better and see if I can get inspired. They have active social lives — something I’m kind of lacking at the moment. They have involved, approving extended families, not just a select few non-judgemental family members sticking around. They enthusiastically see their parents multiple times a week. Without such a committed, consistent presence of family and friends, my stay-at-home arc is going to be much more of a one-woman act.

I’m not against spending time on my own but I’m worried about feeling lonely. I’m more worried about not feeling fulfilled enough. I’ve seen the stress that unemployment can put on a person; it’s not only financial, it’s emotional. A feeling of emptiness, nothingness, taking without giving back to society. An unceremonious entrance into bored housewife syndrome before the age of 25.

That’s the thing — how do I balance my new set of responsibilities with my need for intellectual stimulation and my desire to make the world a better place and not just feel like a freeloader?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m relieved that I finally get a chance to have priorities other than racking up as much work experience as possible. I’m confident that whatever I end up doing when my daughter gets older, if anything, is going to be less competitive and demanding than what I originally had in mind. Charity and voluntary work has regained its old appeal. Becoming a new and improved, more informed, mature adult Kurdish activist is looking like an increasingly good idea.

It’s reasonably socially accepted in my circle. I’ve met a fairly large number of women who partake in the Kurdish rights movement while raising children. It would give me a chance to make friends and strengthen friendships from before; I’ve always been one of the youngest in that “scene”, so the fact that I’m married and have a baby now means I have more in common with the average member of the movement — and I can even bring the baby to meetings and events if they’re during the day. (I try not to schedule my life around naps.) Seeing people bringing their children to protests, always warms my heart even if the right-wing hivemind says it’s brainwashing. Reimagining political activity as a family-friendly activity almost makes me wish Kurdish recruitment was real. (It isn’t.)

It would give me back my pre-baby identity. What I don’t like is the phenomenon of people asking extensive questions about my baby and neglecting, or forgetting altogether, to ask about me. One idea I’ve encountered (in a Romper article by Neha Ruch) is switching up what I wear on school runs as a way to get people to see me as “more than just a mother”. Neha conducted a social experiment, carrying out one school run wearing casual clothes and another in corporate clothes. The other parents only asked her questions about herself and her interests when she was wearing corporate clothes. What would I wear on a school run, then, as someone who doesn’t have or want a 9-to-5 job with a dress code, but doesn’t quite fit in the box of “I’m a full-time mummy”? Jeans and a nice top, with a strategically placed, head-turning cultural accessory?

I need to be honest with myself about the fact that I would prefer to have some side quests separate from the vocation of motherhood. Among the aforementioned mothers in this article, self-sacrifice to the point of burnout seems to be the norm. So it seems this is an unpopular opinion in my community, which I find unfair. I think side quests would make me a more relaxed parent, give me more interesting things to talk about and give me new things to introduce my daughter to. It could be charity work, volunteering, freelancing, getting paid to write, or something else — there are endless possibilities. I once described having a baby as “life-changing but it shouldn’t be life-ending”. I’m also motivated by her seeing me being responsible and independent and eventually doing the same.