| 10/26/2009 1:42:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Kristin Maschka |
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New book focuses on moms
Heather Edwards
staff writer
Mothers need oxygen.
That's one of the messages behind the book, "This is Not How I Thought It Would Be: Remodeling Motherhood To Get the Lives We Want Today."
The author, Kristin Maschka, is a former Minnesotan who returned this month to sign copies and discuss her new book.
By "oxygen," Maschka is referring to the things that make women who are mothers feel well-rounded and allows them to be good mothers. For women, "oxygen" can vary, but spousal, employer and society support are big components.
In her book, Maschka disputes many assumptions, including the one that mothers are better at taking care of children than fathers are. "Women learn this through osmosis from the society we live in," she says.
She also argues that mothers, fathers and society in general needs to acknowledge that family work - the stuff generally done by moms - is, in fact, real work. "It's not just something that mothers do," Maschka writes. "... (it) requires time, energy and skill."
But family work is so disregarded as "work' that mothers who are not employed outside the home don't get Social Security "credit' for the time they are home with the kids.
Women who are in the workforce outside the home also experience prejudices, often ones that they don't realize are happening. They are looked at as "secondary" earners, husbands being the primary earner, and are treated as such by making less money and sometimes being skipped for promotions. "A lot of times, we don't realized this is happening, because we are in the thick of our lives," Maschka says. "We feel frustrated and angry, but we don't quite know who to blame or what to do about it."
In her book, Maschka urges readers to look at motherhood differently, to view mothers as valuable caregivers; she likens this change in perspective as remodeling a house, and offers the tools to make that remodel a success.
Maschka is an expert on motherhood, not just because she is one, but because she served as the national president of Mothers and More for four years.
When she first became involved in the non-profit organization, which is designed to "care for the caregivers," Maschka found herself overwhelmed by the responsibilities of motherhood and the manner in which her sense of identity, her marriage and the life she'd known was turned upside down with the birth of her daughter Kate, now 8. "I was in a fog, wondering what had just happened to me," she recalls. Stumbling into a Mothers and More meeting, Maschka discovered that "Not only was it okay to talk about (the challenges of motherhood), it was key in my understanding about what was happening."
As she became more familiar with motherhood, and the mothers around her, Maschka realized there were many assumptions about mothers - assumptions made by society, fathers and even mothers themselves.
"My hope is that the book starts a bunch of conversations and resonates with mothers," Maschka says. With those conversations, she hopes the way mothers are regarded will begin to change. "(Mothers) have to take the lead," she notes. "Change happens when enough people want it."
Mothers and More has several chapters in the Twin Cities; Monica Gallagher of Lauderdale has been a member of Mothers and More since 2003. She is the mom of two daughters, ages 5 and almost 8, and she thinks Maschka's book will hit home for many. "I've been talking about some of these things since 2003, but a lot of moms are a little afraid to be seen as political, or to take a strong stance on anything," she says. "The book is well reasoned and isn't just a whiny rant, it's based on solid references."
Monica and her husband have had a unique approach to parenting; they have accommodated their work schedules and have never needed outside childcare. However, this, too, has its drawbacks. Her husband feels isolated during the day. And the couple only sees each other for about twenty minutes a day between the time Monica arrives home from her morning job to the time her husband has to leave for his full-time job. "My friends have stopped asking if I can go to a movie or whatever, because they know we're booked solid," she says.
Monica works with Hamline Midway Elders, which is a living-at-home/block nurse program, and through her job she has seen the financial disadvantages of women. "These are widows whose husbands are gone, and they were homemakers," she says. "They were fulfilled from their roles as mothers, but now they see the injustice in Social Security."
Another Mothers and More member, Rebecca Roberts of St. Paul's East side, used to work for a Twin Cities firm as a salaried employee. As employees left the company, the other employees were expected to take up the slack without any extra pay. "I was salaried, so I was expected to do whatever it took, whatever time it required," says the mother of two. "I couldn't get to any of my kids' school functions. It just wasn't working.
"Either you are the mom you want to be or the worker you want to be, but you can't do both."
Monica took a few years off to care for her kids while they were very young, but she was glad to return to work when her younger child was old enough to be in a pre-school program. "There's something about getting a paycheck every two weeks, to get a monetary reward for your hard work," she says.
She found a job in a St. Paul school where she can work around 32 hours a week; she receives benefits and her work days coincide with her kids' school days.
Tonya Hart of Woodbury, along with her husband, founded Primrose School, a private preschool, kindergarten and childcare center, several years ago. When they opened the business, Tonya found herself losing touch with her "work friends." "My only co-worker now, literally, is my husband," she says.
The couple has two children, ages 5 and 6, and Tonya found herself needing to connect with other moms, so she joined Mothers and More. It's a big mixture of moms who work, moms who don't," she says. "One sells Silpada, one makes her own spa products, one is a pediatrician. It runs the gamut, but we have one thing in common: we want what's best for our kids, and we know part of that is a healthy mom.
"We go into the meetings knowing that none of us is a perfect parent," Tonya adds. "But we're going everything we can to do it right."
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