the (not) mama

Finding my way

Ed. note: This was originally posted in August of 2009 on Half Baked, Twice as Good. It ignited a great discussion about the forums for women just like me to express themselves and seek out others who feel similarly.

I write a lot here about how I feel insecure in the sometimes-incestuous little world of blogging. There are small groups of people who are very famous, very popular, very profitable and very involved in their own cliques of fabulousness. There is nothing wrong with this group, except maybe that I’m not a part of it. Then there’s the larger, more open, welcoming group of everyday Janes like me, who have made a decision to write online and struggle each day to become better at it.

My own personal struggles, which I try hard to document honestly here, are with panic and anxiety. But they are also with insecurity. I am not a mother. I don’t have children, and therefore I can’t be categorized as a mommyblogger. I can’t agree or disagree with my blogoshere peers with any authority because I actually don’t know whether Dora is better than Elmo (or can they even be compared?). I am not an expert on car seats, potty training or the amount of work that goes into raising a child in this day and time. Nor am I an expert on the joy that comes with being a parent.

What I am an expert in though is what it’s like to be surrounded by friends with children and to not have any of your own. By choice, I should add. I might not fit into the world of parenting, but by golly I know what it’s like to co-chair a household, work full time and attempt to finish graduate school, all the while fighting like hell to pay the mortgage AND the tuition. Is this my niche? I’m not sure. I’m not sure that there’s a category I fit into, or a label that can be attached to me. I am who I am, and this blog is what it is. That’s why it’s hard to reconcile myself with the fact that – as has been the case so many times in my life – I’m the odd man out.

Mommybloggers have groups and communities and sites and forums and so many arenas in which they can share their experiences, but what is there for the rest of us? Is there even a “rest of us?” Are there large groups of not-moms out there, blogging furiously, trying to make a name for themselves in this giant sea of faceless writers? If so, someone please tell me. Someone please send me an email, direct me to this place where I can go and talk to and commiserate with other women who have chosen not to be parents (yet) but who have chosen to take to the Internet and document their everyday lives.

Because I’m telling you, Internet, it’s a lonely world out here when someone starts talking about Thomas and you think they’re referring to English muffins. (Thomas is a tank engine, FYI.) It’s a lonely world when your co-workers don’t know what you do when you’re not working and you don’t know what your friends do on the weekends because you weren’t invited to their children’s birthday parties. Lest this start to sound like whining or griping, I should point out here that I made a choice. I decided a few years ago to have The Children Discussion with my husband and I made it clear to him that, for now, my education comes first. If the uterus were on the other foot, we’d have half a dozen kids by now, but luckily my husband loves me enough to support my decision and know that we’ll be parents if and when the time is ever right.

I will be 31 years old in two weeks. According to my father, I’m an old, childless woman who has selfishly not given him grandchildren. In my circle of friends, I am that curious, odd girl down the street who, sadly, will have no one to rely on when she’s old and gray. As one of them said, “A master’s degree won’t visit you at Christmas.” This is true. (But I can wrap it and put it under the tree every year, because an education KEEPS ON GIVING.)

I can’t say if Brian and I will ever have children, nor can I say that we won’t. But until that day happens, I find myself out here, outside the groups and circles and forums, looking around desperately for a familiar face to say to me, Hey, I know how you feel. I’m not a mommy, but I am a blogger. Let’s go out there and kick some ass.