“Can you just not be here?” were the words launched out of my almost 15 year old daughter’s mouth as she requested a “friend” come over in the school holidays. (And when I write “friend”, yes the boy variety friend).
“Don’t talk rot” I said. “I’m not embarrassing, and I promise I will never do anything to embarrass you.”
The 18 year old, who has only just got his keys back on a part time basis due to being, well, an 18 year old, chimes in with “YOU… not embarrassing? YEAH RIGHT! You have a blog and now a podcast. My friends torture me with it and play it to me. They’ve single handedly upped your listener ratings.”
Thanks Fellas. We’ll be sure to give you a special mention on the next episode. 😜
It seems that it doesn’t matter what you do, what you wear or say, what car you drive, what job you have or how much money you have in the bank, it’s a right of passage that you embarrass your children just by sharing the same air as them, their peers, or anyone they are trying to impress. Even the coolest Hollywood stars have cringing teens at home.
I get where they are coming from because I have vivid memories of pretending that I didn’t have parents because “everyone else’s parents were cool and my parents were cringey”. Ugh, why did my mother wear peach coloured pants and dad wore long socks with shorts. Why was my dad so loud and talked too much. Why couldn’t mum just, I dunno, not be so mumsy. These were all questions whirling around in my head as a young girl, longing to be like my hair twin, orphan Annie. I gotta say, who doesn’t want their own millionaire Daddy Warbucks and Punjab?
One day, I have no doubt that the kids won’t find me so embarrassing. They might even look back and smile as they read these words or listen to the recordings of The 40’s Project . It’ll happen. But in the mean time, I’ll keep being the most embarrassing mother in the entire world, because that’s how much I love them.
Today is Cystic Fibrosis awareness day and I just can’t seem to let it pass without writing or sharing or giving it some recognition because for years I thought this stupid disease would change our family forever. I thought it would take our son away. I thought that he might not reach adulthood. Crazy thoughts? In hindsight yes, but at the time it was very real.
18 years ago, life for kids with CF looked a lot different than it does now. Being born in 2005 with CF certainly held more hope than previous years, and the prognosis was definitely getting better and better as time went on, but for new parents it was hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel.
I vividly remember carting my precious baby around the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, side-eyeing the skinny young teenagers I’d see who were muffling coughs with hunched shoulders. During those early years, there were some familiar teenage faces who would be strolling the hallways and riding the elevators. I never knew them by name, but I knew that these were “CF’ers” and I was staring at my baby’s future.
We continually hoped that he would be one of the “lucky ones”, the ones who hardly went to hospital and barely caught a cold. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason as to who gets chosen to be a “lucky one”. It’s pot luck in a pretty shitty competition.
As I clutched my son, literally and figuratively, through the early months, I honestly thought that our life, especially my son’s life would be dictated by this disease in the most horrible ways. I also thought that I would never be able to leave him or be away from him, that I could never go back to work, have a hobby, an anything. So overwhelming was the prospect of what this disease could do, I was crippled with fear of the future.
But as it does, time marched on, and my deluded thoughts and anxiety for the future settled, while we rode the roller coaster of CF. We navigated our way through some pretty hectic kid juggling phases and at times, some worrying moments but amongst that, life trotted along beautifully. In the background though, there was a cloud – a cloud that hovered without us ever knowing when it was going to rain. It was unpredictable – sometimes it was a brief sprinking shower and other times a lightning storm. A lot of the time it caught us by surprise.
Fast forward to 2022 – A magic little pill called Trikafta finally became available for people living with CF in Australia. I was cautious in my excitement and didn’t want to pin all of my hopes on it, while I simultaneously pinned all of my hopes on it.
Luckily for us, this little pill turned out to be pretty magic. It’s been just over 12 months since Mac started Trikafta and it’s been just over 12 months since he’s needed antibiotics. The cloud seems to have lifted a bit. It’s still there, but it seems to be a fair weather cloud these days and the future looks very different than it did before.
In saying all of this, Trikafta isn’t a cure for CF. Mac has definitely drawn the long straw when it comes to having such a fabulous improvement taking this medication. Some people with CF don’t have the right genotype to take Trikafta and some can’t take it due to rare side effects. For others, it’s simply a case of it just not working as well for them.
So until a cure for CF is found, I’ll continue to do my annual awareness shout-outs. I’ll keep wishing for the same thing each year as I blow out my birthday candles as well as cross my fingers that CF will one day mean Cure Found.
I’m sitting on our couch on Sunday night, which is now the early hours of Monday morning. I’m watching my little boy sleep, in between hurling his ringer up and wriggling around with the pain that comes with gastro. I’m poised with a bucket, tissues, Powerade, Spray & Wipe and hand gel. I’m contemplating a hazmat suit.
It’s gonna be a long night.
I apologise in advance for the fact that Mr Spewmanti was at basketball, two birthday parties and bingo over the weekend. He likes to get around. 🥴
I read a quote once that said having a child means you now watch your heart walk around outside of your body.
It’s corny but true.
In between wiping up spew and rubbing Elliot’s forehead, I’m reminded of all the women I know who are riding or have ridden the wave of motherhood when mothering is brutal, and I’m not talking about a sleepless night with a case of gastro.
Brutal is when your heart can be tearing apart and you wonder how the hell you’re going to get through what lies ahead. Somehow we muster up a kind of “super mother power”. We’re like Wonder Woman spinning into all of her glory while we chant “we ain’t got no time for that shit.”
Tonight I’m thinking of my beautiful friend who is currently sitting a bedside vigil in ICU with her son who was in a horrific car accident.
Tonight I’m thinking of a local mum who is preparing a memorial service for her son who was tragically taken in an accident on the way home from school.
Tonight I’m thinking of the mums I know whose children have been diagnosed with chronic illness.
Tonight I’m thinking of a friend whose teenager is trying to find himself and his identity.
Tonight I’m thinking of the mums I know who have lost children to cancer and the mum who has only recently found out.
Tonight I’m thinking of a friend who helped her child navigate his way through addiction.
Tonight I’m thinking of another whose child has been diagnosed with Autism.
Tonight I’m thinking of the mum whose daughter cries herself to sleep because she doesn’t think her body is the right shape.
I’m also thinking of the mums who are just having a crappy time for no other reason than that life can just suck giant turds sometimes.
Motherhood isn’t for the faint hearted. It also takes a tribe to keep us sane.
I’m lucky to have a circle of amazing women in my world. They’re the ones who have lifted me up when things in my world get a little sketchy. They check in, send a message, call for a quick chat that turns into hours of world problem solving. They lend a hand, make me laugh and have my back. They’re real, they’re raw and they don’t pretend to be anything but who they are. They’re all fabulous for many different reasons. They accept me and my foibles and teach me a lot.
So to all of the mums out there who are catching spew in buckets, researching teen behaviour, driving kids to appointments, wiping away tears, sitting by a hospital bed praying or simply managing to get the kids off to school on time without losing your mind….
You’re amazing.
Mums are incredible.
Don’t let anyone tell you anything else.
Disclaimer *Yes, dads are incredible too, but this blog is called Hoochiemumma not Hoochiepapa 😉.
If there is a word to describe our break away, it would be blue. Blue sky, blue ocean, blue beaches….every shade of blue you can imagine….from turquoise to navy.
There is definitely something to be said about the beaches along the Eyre Peninsula. There is also something to be said about their sand dunes too. I had mainly swear words to say and prayers of a quick death as I dug deep to haul my ample self over them.
Now we are experiencing a different kind of blue….the “Holiday Blues”.
It’s a real thing. I saw it with my own eyes as I farewelled our friends from our coastal oasis as they headed back to the drudgery of responsibility and life in the “real world”.
Now it’s our turn.
I’m not a fan of this. I am quite attune to the holiday vibe.
The whole concept of caravan and camping still boggles me a bit though. I don’t know why I like it because essentially we pick up our family, scrunch them into the car to drive 6 hours while they moan about having sore bums. We plonk them down to live in a space no larger than an average lounge room, tell them all to HAVE FUN AND LOVE EACH OTHER BECAUSE WE ARE ON HOLIDAYS AND “MAKING MEMORIES”, GODDAMMIT.
Added to this is that we have neighbours in a caravan park and “parenting quietly”, without a garnish of word parsley is preferable.
Sometimes a tough ask.
It’s also a lot of effort to set up a teeny tiny house on wheels. There is still cooking and washing to do, with the added bonus of having to walk the trail to the ablution block to share the ritual of sitting on a toot next to complete strangers while listening to each other take a poo.
Ah…. the serenity.
Despite this, we, and many others love to getaway in a caravan.
Everyone has settled into their “caravan set up jobs” too. I’m plumbing/electrical, tables and chairs. Trent is anything to do with spatial awareness, knots/ropes, tent construction and lifting heavy shit. The kids become the apprentices and like a well oiled machine we are sitting in a deck chair before we know it.
However this doesn’t happen before the most important job is done.
Backing. In. The. Caravan.
Trent is the backer.
I am the finger pointer and yeller of “whoa”.
I don’t like this job. I don’t like it at all.
Usually Trent and I are on the same page when it comes to lots of things.
Hand signals is NOT one of them.
I secretly love watching couples “help” each other back into caravan blocks. I’m certain there are divorce proceedings happening right now which states “irreconcilable differences mainly due to backing caravans and erecting annexes”.
These tasks are not for the faint hearted or the shakey marriage. These tasks can make you question what you ever saw in your partner in the first place.
Luckily for this trip our friends were already there so I made myself scarce and magically the men just made the van backing happen with hardly a word spoken. There must be a secret man code of hand signals that I know nothing about.
So now that we are home, the reality of life has bestowed itself upon our sad hearts and given us a case of the holiday blues.
We’ve picked up the list of all the things we stacked into the “stuff it, we’ll do it when we get back” file. The mental load is repacking itself into the recesses of our brains and life will ramp back up to “as per usual” before we know it.
But I guess this is what makes us want more. This is the magic of the holiday getaway. We press pause on the day to day drudgery and give ourselves permission to relax and do things we wouldn’t normally do. If our whole life was like this, what would we have to look forward to?
Happy Holidays to you all, and may the Blues be quick and painless.
For those of you who don’t get an opportunity to go on a holiday at all…..even to a caravan park to poo with strangers, I’m sorry. I hope you can sneak in some moments of holiday-ness and at least find some time to read a book in the sun or take an afternoon nap. On the plus side, day drinking isn’t frowned upon either when on holiday, so pour a gin with your cornflakes and call it a trip 👍🏻
Tomorrow is D DAY. Its a fundraiser for the Cure4CF Foundation. Yes, I’m at it again…. Yes, it’s probably annoying. I know how I feel when I see people over share the same thing. I eye-roll a bit and think “yeah yeah we get it”.
When you’re on the other side though, and there is a cause that you’re passionate about, especially one that involves your child, there seems to be motivation to be annoying and speak out.
Sometimes sharing too much can come across as attention-seeking perhaps? I have always struggled with this balance. There are plenty of people out there branding their existence with having a child with an illness. Usually, these people are giant pains in the arses and sometimes their kids are too.
I would give anything to not have this as a topic to write about. But here are.
We all have struggles through, a hurdle, or some kind of challenge that life throws at us. Every one of us. I’m sure you’re thinking of yours right now. When I think of my family and friends I can easily identify something going on in their lives that is, or has been stressful, hard, or sad. It’s called life I suppose.
Most often, struggles have some kind of silver lining. One of the positive things that having a child with a chronic illness has brought me, is being able to put things into perspective. It’s really easy to get hung up on the small stuff and I certainly do my fair share of that at times. Like this afternoon when Scarlett dobbed on Elliot for being a bit of a dick on the bus.
Did I speak to him about it.. yes.
Did he deny that he did anything wrong…of course.
Did he run away to his room while I was mid sentence, yelling “you just don’t get it mum, stop going on about it”… yes.
Did I see red and turn into psycho Sally and tell him that I will ban him from the bus myself and also used the “f” word twice in one sentence. Also yes.
So OK, sometimes I do sweat the small stuff.
Anyway… I digress.
I have often wondered what kind of parent I would have been if not for the experience of having Macauley. I have also wondered how different he would be too. Those early years were tough and I was fairly intense and controlling when it came to trying to keep him well. It was the only coping mechanism I had to make it feel like I had some kind of handle over something so uncontrollable. I was pretty much kidding myself, but it made me feel better at the time. Because his health was my number one priority, everything else kind of took a back seat and priorities shifted a little. I think I definitely had it in me to be competitive and compare. What a joy sucker that is. (Just a tip for new mums too….you soon forget the age they start crawling, or if they walked before they were one. Plus, once you have more than two kids you get them all mixed up and refer to those early years as “well one of you stated walking a bit late… I dunno which one of you it was now?”)
So by the time he turned 5 and started school, I didn’t really care that he couldn’t hold a pencil and write his name yet. Was he meant to? Besides sending me bat shit crazy, I didn’t worry too much that he was stuck on level 3 reader for what seemed a 100 months of Sunday’s. And who knew that being able to tie a shoelace by a certain age was a milestone to be aiming for? Just buy the velcro shoes people. They’ll get it one day. All of these things are important to a certain degree, but I kept thinking how lucky we were that he was at school, that he was born in the new millennium. If he were living in the 60’s I could have well been preparing his funeral, not his first day of school.
Which brings me to my point of being an over sharer. It’s due to people making more noise and fighting for funding and raising awareness that has led to some amazing medicines and research being done in science land. Sure, big pharma is probably all the horrible things that people say it is….to what degree I wouldn’t know. All I know is that without “Big Pharma” my big kid wouldn’t be here. As evil and horrible as people make them out to be, big pharma develop and provide my child with medication he literally cannot live without.
Organisations like Cure4CF Foundation raise money to provide funds for exciting developments and research focused on a CURE. I see it like a giant jigsaw puzzle where all of the new bits of research from around the world get tacked onto the older bits and are pieced together to solve the puzzle. I am hopeful that the puzzle of CF will be solved so that Macauley and many others can breathe a little easier.
Literally.
M
PS….As always, if you can give, please do or simply share to make aware. 🌹
As much as I am an absolute supporter and cheer squad for women who achieve brilliance in their lives, excel in their chosen pursuits and smash some ceilings, I wonder sometimes, who is cheering for the other kinds of amazing women?
I was stuck in a room with my 15 year old son for 4 days. He was beyond thrilled to say the least.
CF has landed him back in hospital for a bit. Topped off nicely, was the fact he developed a cold so a Covid test was needed….Then lockdown hit so we weren’t going anywhere. Mr Lucky had me within arms reach for a longer stint than we planned.
During our iso situation, he made a comment after I hung the phone up from speaking with the ward clerk.
“You’re weird” he said.
After he got told to get stuffed, I dug a bit deeper…
“Weird how?… like scary weird or quirky weird or what?” I asked.
“Or is it just because I’m your mum and every kid thinks their parents are weird.” I added.
“Na… you ask any of my friends and they all rekon you’re a bit weird”.
This was also confirmed by my almost teen daughter when she looked at me, screwed her nose up a little and sympathetically replied to my inquisition with “well… yeah, you kinda are”.
Excellent. That’s what everyone wants to hear.
I would have happily settled for any other description than weird.
Clearly I’m not the cool mum, the laid back mum, the strict mum, the mum with the best pantry snacks mum, the handy mum, the smart mum, the chatty mum, the quiet mum, the funny mum, the friendly mum, the kind mum, the cranky mum, the “insert any other adjective you can think of” mum. Nope….I’m the WEIRD mum.
But look, if teenagers think I’m weird then I’m pretty ok with that because there’s some seriously weird shit going on in the land of the teen.
Weird is taking photos of a quarter of your head, writing “streaks” across it then sending it to all of your friends on Snapchat as a form of entertainment and connection.
Weird is not using a phone to TALK. Alexander Graham Bell would be quite miffed.
Weird is wearing socks and slides.
Weird is the ability to text at 300 wpm but the inability to get clothes INTO the laundry basket.
Weird is the resurgence of the 80’s mullet and somehow making it even uglier. Just stop it.
Weird is knowing every AFL player trade but not knowing how long to heat something up in the microwave. Like ever.
Weird is doing the SAME ANNOYING CRAP EVERY SINGLE DAY and then acting completely shocked when I lose my ever loving mind.
Weird is having a tanty after being asked to empty the dishwasher after a hard morning of sleeping until lunch time.
Weird is not being able to see something that is straight in front of your face.
Puh-lease. Spare me the lecture.
So me and my weirdness will just be over here living my best weird life being Mrs Weird of Weirdsville.
I would really love to hear what word your teens use to describe you as a mum? And if it’s “loving and kind” you can quietly go and live on Liar Island with the pizza guy.
Come at me fellow Weird mums. I can’t be living in Weirdsville alone?
I’ve been a bit quiet on the blogging front. Seems the lady of leisure has not been leisuring. I know. Shock horror! Sometimes the best-laid plans don’t work.
So here is a list of random thoughts and questions as well as a few nuggets of wisdom that I’ve been reminded about or learnt about recently.
1. Firstly, to help you all feel like you’re not the only one slowly going insane, I spent 10 minutes hunting for my sunglasses that were on top of my head. I seriously contemplated a lay down because I am in genuine fear that I may in fact, be losing my sanity.
2. Question: Have I been going IN the outlane and OUT the inlane at our local supermarket? There are no arrows, but I sometimes get the stink eye from some very annoyed large car drivers. Is there an unwritten rule? Advice and debate freely accepted.
3. Organising a get together with like-minded supportive women is the most fabulous therapy ever. Having an agenda is even better!
4. People don’t always have your best interest at heart and simply have nothing better to do than fish for gossip. These people are joy-suckers. Avoid them like the Rona.
5. It’s OK to disappoint someone else before yourself, so saying “no” is necessary as well as refreshing.
6. Doing the hardest thing on the to-do list first thing in the morning makes the day so much brighter. I need to do this more often.
7. Someone gave me a solid and simple piece of advice and let me tell you, it lifted a weight from my shoulders and has helped me jump a hurdle I had made for myself in my own head. Which leads to…..
8. Procrastination isn’t laziness. I spotted this today and yup.. mind blown. Yes yes and yes. I procrastinate a lot and generally… one of these is the reason.
9. Gin is nicer than I had thought it would be and if you have two of them, they make your legs relax. After three it may make your legs do more than just relax. Buyer beware.
10. My youngest child is willing to pay his older sister “a hundred bucks” so that she “won’t tell mum (he) was eating on the lounge” (new lounge… my kids are savages… NO EATING ON THE NEW LOUNGE).
11. Also… my youngest child doesn’t realise that I can hear him without seeing him.
12. Term 4 is always the worst term for parents of school aged children (and teachers too, I imagine). She may be a shorter term but she’s an intense bitch of a thing that needs Valium, with a possible back up of two leg relaxing gins.
13. Letting go of the need to “figure it all out yourself” is a good move. Surrendering to the fact that we all need help is a form of self care and not a weakness. This mantra needs to be repeated by stubborn tarts like myself on a weekly basis.
14. Question: Do conspiracy theorists just believe all of them or can you choose just one or two and go hard and fast. Like, can you believe that 5G is going to kill us all but vaccines are OK, or is it all or nothing? Also when is Pete Evans going to disappear into his own arse and STFU.
15. Everyone should watch Dr David Attenborough’s “A Life On Our Planet”. Everyone. It should be made compulsory viewing in schools. It will either confirm your ethos or challenge the ideas about the way in which you live. It will remind you of our role within a much bigger picture. Either way, it will bring tears. Tissues required.
16. Final question: why is it that going to bed earlier doesn’t make me more pleasant in the morning? Why? A question I’m sure my family would like answered.
Omg. I got sucked into a tiktok vortex and dragged one of my friends along for the ride.
I was stalking children, but not in the way that sounds.
Here’s an idea. If you have a kid with a tik-tok account or even if you don’t think they have a tik-tok account, log yourself on and take a squiz. You might be surprised at what little Johnny or Mary is doing and/or watching. Just giving you the heads up that in TikTok land Johnny may be known as “dixi_normus” and Mary could be “sassyqueen482❤️”. It’s a free-for-all. God knows what our generation’s grandchildren will be named. I draw the line at underscores (pun intended) and silent letters.
Second idea. If you find out your kid has a tik-tok account make sure it’s private. I can see all sorts of stuff. I can see inside people’s houses, parents in the background, school and sports club logos and what they ate for tea last night. I now know what school your kid goes to, who they play sport for, what you look like, what car you drive, what their siblings look like and if I was a sick a perverted idiot I could spend a bit of time and find your house aswell.
Am I over-reacting? Probably. Am I being hypocritical because I use social media, with a public page and I blog about my family? Possibly. Am I a 10 year old child who doesn’t know a lot about online safety, potentially being exposed to strangers who see me as an easy target? No. Am I being followed by hundreds of people. No 😏. Am I a pre-pubescent boy following a tiktok account called Sexxyyyy Ladieeessss being exposed to a bit of soft porn while I scroll through my Tiktok feed. Also NO. Plus I’d be more inclined to be following Sexxyyy Mennnn thanks.
Like many parents I grapple with social media. I love it in many ways and hate it equally as much. It’s definitely here to stay, so there’s no point fighting it. I personally use it quite a bit. It’s a source of entertainment, news and connection. I do most of my news reading online. I collect a lot of recipes to cook for my family to whinge about. I follow my favourite artists, comedians, actors and social commentators online and also follow leaders and organisations who I have learnt a lot from. It’s a big wide world out there and it’s all accessible through the click of a few buttons. All great stuff, until suddenly it’s not so great.
Much to the disgust of our teen I’ve had the “porn on the internet is not what sex is really like” conversation aswell. Someone told me once the average age that a child is exposed to online porn is 8. What in all fuckery is that? I also added details about the fact that “most women don’t look like that in real life and no, you probably won’t be doing THAT the first time you explore the world of sexy-time. It will probably be exciting but awkward and weird as well as possibly being over before it begins”… (I think he’d left the room at this point yelling “we learn this at school… please stop talking mum, you’re weird”). But it’s our job to talk about this stuff isn’t it? It’s our job to launch into their world a bit and keep a “watchful eye” (totally not spying.. 🧐)….They’re gonna stuff up for sure, and that ok. That’s what kids do. I just want mine to be safe and informed. I need to have a bit of confidence that I’m sending kids into this online world armed with a bit of knowledge.
Kids can be savvy and smart and sneaky though. If my kids wanted to have private accounts and hide or block me, so they can watch sexyyy ladiesss or someone busting out some bad dance moves accompanied by some totally inappropriate swearing, that’s understandable. Come to think of it, they can get all of that from me on any given night in the kitchen… why the hell do they need Tik-tok? Anyway, who wants their parents watching everything you do? I sure as hell didn’t, so I don’t expect mine would either. I like to remind them though that I’m honing my investigation skills. Some of my favourite books to read and podcasts to listen to are based on true crime investigative journalism and I’m starting to think I could change my name to Cagney or maybe Lacey? Who was the one that always seemed tired and had the annoying kids?
Good luck and stay strong out there. 2020 parenting is a far stretch from the days of spokey dokes and cabbage patch kids with the most controversial topic of debate being whether Boy George was a boy and if so how did he get such great eyebrows?
When I had fantasies about stapling my boss’s hair to her desk, I figured I needed to re-evaluate my professional life.
So I quit.
It doesn’t escape me that I was lucky to be in a position where I could just make that decision. The impact wasn’t huge to our lifestyle. My income contribution was icing on the cake. I only worked part-time and I’ve always worked in human services. The most underpaid work in the whole world. A female-dominated, disastrously undervalued and underpaid industry #genderpaygap. Let’s just say you don’t stick around in human services for the pay packet.
With my new-found freedom, I derived the most fabulous plans about the mammoth achievements I would accomplish as I turned my focus to our family, the farm, study and general awesomeness. No daytime telly, three-hour phone calls, or mindless scrolling of the interwebs for me. No siree Bob. I was going to tick off my long list of those goals and not waste a second. I’d be self-motivated and action-packed. I’d have a plan. I’d stick to it. I would be some kind of super version of myself.
All I’ve really done is clean out a cupboard, filed paperwork and started a blog. Well, I’ve done a bit more than that, but not to the epic proportions I had conjured up in my head.
I think I was trying to compensate for the fact that it was the first time in my whole life that when people asked me “what I did”, also known as “how do you earn money?” that I didn’t have an easy answer. I found myself spewing out a convoluted story to justify my existence in the world. I’d find myself explaining how I do the book work for the farm now and how that has been a learning curve for me and that I volunteer more and I have good intentions of finishing a course and blah blah blah fucking blah.
So one day, I decided that if I was ever confronted with that question again I’d simply say “I’m a trophy wife”. I thought it was hilarious. Mr. Hooch looked at me like he often does… with utter bewilderment, and we both agreed that yes, I probably came in at the “participation ribbon” level of the trophy wife stakes, (thanks darling 🖕🏻), but none the less that was my go-to slogan. Trophy wife…Hilarious…Completely opposing my feminist views…Perfect! I even bought a new dress for the occasion.
I forgot, however, that not everyone understands my sense of humour. I need to gauge that a little better because not that long ago I was asked if I was “on a day off” or if I had to “get back to work”. I proudly blurted out that “I quit work about 18months ago. I’m a trophy wife now!”
A weird kind of silence sat in the room. Kinda like a fart no one claims.
Oh shit…. ‘should’ve worn my dress’, I thought.
So, I launched the old routine.
It was reciprocated with a “oh… good on you”.
I think it was genuine, but I also felt a slight vibe of “what are you doing? Who the hell doesn’t work these days?”
Or maybe it was me, reading too much into it. Maybe it’s me that doesn’t value my role enough in the world. Why is that? Why do women feel pressure to be everything? “I am woman… hear me roar and then hear me have a mental breakdown as I try and do it all, juggling my life to be the woman we read about”.
According to the world, we should be fit, slim, gluten-free, vegan yogi’s with a Master’s degree, climbing the professional ladder while simultaneously raising well balanced, high achieving children. We must do this whilst displaying the patience and understanding of the Dali Lama, as we gleefully serve up nutritious meals equalling the culinary skills of Nigella. And don’t forget to make time for your partner…have date nights; make time for friends; nurture family connections; donate; volunteer, and for god’s-sake walk the dog.
Nope. Fuck that. Not happening.
It’s a trophy wife’s life for me. At least for a little while longer, or until I want to staple my children’s hair to their desks. So far so good!
