The Invisible Woman

D put it eloquently recently: “women have it tough.” To summarize: you’re a girl, you decide being a mom is important to you, but you aren’t married yet. So you pursue a career; you’re going along the path, some guy waylays you, you get married, have kids. And then you’ve got to make some kind of decision, compromise, sacrifice.

I look around and see all kinds of situations. Where I work, most people stay full-time and hire one or more nannies, or have grandparents who live with them. Some work part-time; some stop working altogether.

I still think staying home to be with your child is important, but it’s hard. Harder than working. I’ve been going on job interviews, and when discussions of my CV come up I feel like I’m reading about someone from another world. I guess I used to be someone who competed, was involved in things, took courses and overnight shifts. Now I wash dishes, only to wash more dishes. I clean up the toys only to clean them up again. I change diapers only to change more diapers. I can sing all the songs from Baby Signing Times and quote Goodnight Moon in my sleep.

I feel relatively invisible. Sometimes it feels like I end the day without much more to show for it than when I began. Everyone knew what kind of student or doctor I was. Who knows, truly, what kind of mother I am? It’s like you disappear under the radar except when someone judges you based on how well-behaved your kid was at some function or where they end up for college.

Of course no one knows me well enough to see what kind of mother I really am. But God does. He saw all the things I’ve done before in my life; now he sees the sleepless nights when she’s sick, hears the lullabies and silly songs and repetitive explanations. He understands my desire to be the one there with her, and what I am not doing in order to be the one changing her diaper or taking her for a walk.

Like all the previous things in my life, motherhood is temporary. I look back now on the days I was a serious pianist, or took a Shakespeare class. One day I’ll look back on the days I spent with her alone. This is a privilege, this time with her, and it will pass like any other time in life. One day it will be more obvious than it is now that she never was mine. And what matters in the end won’t be what I have to show anyone for it, other than God, who is the only one who ever really sees me, anyway. And the only thing in my life that never changes.