This salesman came to my door a few days ago and said, "Hello, Mom! I can tell that you're the MOM in the house!"
Wow. That was really bizarre.
I hate that I am that person, with the kid and the husband, blah blah blah, and people assume that I'm ... THAT PERSON. Like I'm just like every other "stay at home mom"????? So so so weird. I cannot, in a million years, even if I have twelve kids and *home school them all, ever relate to that phrase, "stay at home mom". I think I am a single lesbian in a married "stay at home mom" person's body. Is that possible?
* I know people who home school their kids because they are religious fanatics, and are afraid of what kids might learn at school. The only logical reason I can think of to ever home school a child is if I were convinced that there was some sort of contagious disease on the loose in our schools, something worse than pink eye. Like, I don't know, something that made you a zombie-like creature thirsting for human flesh. Then, I might home-school. Or just send Zelma to school with some anti-bacterial lotion. I don't know.
I would have punched that guy in the face!!
ReplyDeleteI guess I left out the possibly even more offensive part, where he said he had heard that I had two kids in middle school. I said,
ReplyDelete"Absolutely not!" and slammed the door in his face.
(Actually, to be more honest, I started to slam the door in his face, while he was talking about his encyclopedias, and I said, "uh-- but good luck with that stuff---" like, you know, the whimp that I sometimes am. And then I really did slam the door in his face, while he was still talking. Which left me feeling so empty and wrong inside. I knew I shouldn't have opened the door! I just had this terrible feeling about it.)
Screw that guy. It was all part of his stupid, mysoginistic spiel, and it caused you an existential dilemma. That's always the way it works, isn't it? He probably would have said the same thing if I opened the door, and I don't have kids at all.
ReplyDeletePeople expect mothers to totally lose their identities when they have children. I think I have abook you should read. If I can find it, I'll mail it to you.
There's this world-class runner-Paula Radcliffe- who is possibly the fastest woman on earth at the moment, and she also has a baby about three months older than Zelma. I read an article about her where she said that people ask her if she's still running, or they act surprised that she still runs. She's the fastest woman on earth! She's training for the olympic marathon! Of course she hasn't quit running.
ReplyDeletePeople do not lose their identities when they have children, but for some reason, other people often assume that we do. Very very weird.