It was 105 degrees at least two days last week. Sitting in the parking lot at the grocery store, I watched a very pregnant woman slowly waddling the 20-yard hike from her car to the store. I sat and remembered what that felt like... pelvic bones aching from the bone and cartilage shifting and increasing pressure inside, back sore to the touch from the constant strain, lungs tight and confined from the bulging uterus, body sweating and weak from extra 30-50 pounds it now had to carry.
Seeing this woman and thinking a lot lately of my friends and family that are expecting or either just delivered (Amanda just had baby Shelby, Jenny still in the hospital with baby Reese, Kelley expecting her second - maybe a boy! and Sherry expecting a baby boy at the end of the month) gave me an idea. Many of you might have gotten an email from me asking for support for a proposed bill referendum that allows women in their second trimester to be issued 6-month temporary handicapped parking.
Whether you agree or disagree is absolutely up to you but I will say that I was taken aback by my mom's response. When I asked what she thought she responded that she would not support the referendum. She said that she had to walk when she was pregnant and she made it just fine.
Well, there you go. Once Mom has formed an opposing opinion, there can be no dialogue or conversation. She clamps down like a bear trap around her ideals and beliefs and time spent discussing usually ends up with me pretending not to hear the partisan barbs while I nod in silence. I try to keep my own thoughts to myself because a) there's no use and b) I love her and don't want to argue with her.
Was her only reason for not wanting to make life a little easier for someone else because no one had made it easy for her? What harm or inconvenience would come her in the far fetched event that the law was amended? Then I wondered if Mom was looking down through her own glass ceiling.
The first time I ever felt the glass ceiling was when Tammy Cagle (aforementioned in the Wretched Cows I Can't Stop Hating post) informed me at an annual review that she would not be increasing my salary. That I was a tremendous asset to the company (which had just peaked it's most profitable year) and growing as a business woman in leaps and bounds but she had worked for the company for 10 years before she made the salary I was making. I could not be rewarded because she had struggled. The glass ceiling.
By definition, the glass ceiling is an invisible barrier that exists that keeps minorities from advancing beyond a certain level. I always imagined an overweight white man with a big office, coffee stained teeth and a receptionist he called Darlin' keeping the foothold on the ceiling. Not us. Not women.
I'm sure we may all be a little guilty of it. I was more than a little green when I heard they were no longer making you wait to be dilated at 5cm before giving you an epidural and thought "psssh... stinking little heifers don't know what it REALLY feels like to be in labor - you try being in labor 14 hours without an epidural and see how much of a woman you are!" I secretly wished their episiotomies would get infected. What the hell does it matter if your experience isn't like mine? If you can pop that little sucker out without breaking a sweat, then more power to ya, sister!
Seeing this woman and thinking a lot lately of my friends and family that are expecting or either just delivered (Amanda just had baby Shelby, Jenny still in the hospital with baby Reese, Kelley expecting her second - maybe a boy! and Sherry expecting a baby boy at the end of the month) gave me an idea. Many of you might have gotten an email from me asking for support for a proposed bill referendum that allows women in their second trimester to be issued 6-month temporary handicapped parking.
Whether you agree or disagree is absolutely up to you but I will say that I was taken aback by my mom's response. When I asked what she thought she responded that she would not support the referendum. She said that she had to walk when she was pregnant and she made it just fine.
Well, there you go. Once Mom has formed an opposing opinion, there can be no dialogue or conversation. She clamps down like a bear trap around her ideals and beliefs and time spent discussing usually ends up with me pretending not to hear the partisan barbs while I nod in silence. I try to keep my own thoughts to myself because a) there's no use and b) I love her and don't want to argue with her.
Was her only reason for not wanting to make life a little easier for someone else because no one had made it easy for her? What harm or inconvenience would come her in the far fetched event that the law was amended? Then I wondered if Mom was looking down through her own glass ceiling.
The first time I ever felt the glass ceiling was when Tammy Cagle (aforementioned in the Wretched Cows I Can't Stop Hating post) informed me at an annual review that she would not be increasing my salary. That I was a tremendous asset to the company (which had just peaked it's most profitable year) and growing as a business woman in leaps and bounds but she had worked for the company for 10 years before she made the salary I was making. I could not be rewarded because she had struggled. The glass ceiling.
By definition, the glass ceiling is an invisible barrier that exists that keeps minorities from advancing beyond a certain level. I always imagined an overweight white man with a big office, coffee stained teeth and a receptionist he called Darlin' keeping the foothold on the ceiling. Not us. Not women.
I'm sure we may all be a little guilty of it. I was more than a little green when I heard they were no longer making you wait to be dilated at 5cm before giving you an epidural and thought "psssh... stinking little heifers don't know what it REALLY feels like to be in labor - you try being in labor 14 hours without an epidural and see how much of a woman you are!" I secretly wished their episiotomies would get infected. What the hell does it matter if your experience isn't like mine? If you can pop that little sucker out without breaking a sweat, then more power to ya, sister!
Here's the thing. We wake before anyone else each day to fold that basket of laundry, lay out something for supper and maybe steal a quite moment with a cup of coffee, we dress the kids, we get their breakfast and pack their bags, we dress ourselves - wondering if we have enough time to shave our legs AND moisturize, we haul the kids to daycare and school, we work all day long at our jobs eating leftovers for lunch to save money, we rush home, we cook supper, we bathe the kids, we put them to bed, we survey the damage and tidy up the house, we pay bills or fold clothes while we watch TV and when the day is finally done we have sex with our husbands (because, God we need one more thing to have to do everyday).
Life for the modern woman is tough. There will always be a glass ceiling. Let's try to make sure it's not tinted pink.
5 comments:
Ummmmmm, the "sex with our husbands part".... so thats a daily thing there???? I would like to move in with you guys and just monitor how that is done. Actually it be nice to see a penis since mine has be M.I.A. right around hittin 35, I kinda forgot what they look like....especially a "real man" one like Jeffs (according to him).
Lane, I just shot Pepsi One out of my nose...lmao
And quit being "anonymous," you and Jill are regular features!
Being a Preg-O myself, I think it is a wonderful idea. Let's stop worrying about what we or others suffered through in the past and let's make it better now and in the future for all of us!
Oh hell , the glass ceiling is being the owner of the business, the hard working one, telling a salesman that when they come in and then they as to see "the other owner?" (the man one)...Humm they never knew if they pissed me off bad enough, they never got to come back!
You are a poet sister! Seriously, you should write a book for us open-minded working moms out there. Why limit yourself to a blog?
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