weekly delights #53
on picking paint colors for kids' rooms (inspo pics, before + after), collecting plates, and gardening woes
Happy Monday friends,
This week’s missive is going to be very life-update-y. Nothing mega, just a re-cap of what has turned out to be a very busy week, but a good one. However, before I dive into all that I just wanted to say thank you for all the lovely comments and messages on last week’s post on the tinge of embarrassment I sometimes feel when I tell people I’m a stay-at-home-mom.
I had so many lovely chats with all of you in my DMs and beyond about the cultural complexity of vocational motherhood, and I promise I’m not going to launch into all again, but wanted to quickly share one interesting chat I had with my friend Savannah Locke on the topic.
Sav is my age, married, has no children, and has never wanted any. I got a thrill when I saw my phone ping with an audio message from her because she always has good things to say.
She shared she’d had of a bit of down week with work— she’s a prolific songwriter here in Nashville, podcast cohost, and has a book coming out soon!— and she told me she had this moment where she thought “If I had children, no one would question my work or value” during the more fallow seasons of work.
Despite the fact she’s one of the most productive multi-hyphantes I know, I knew exactly what she meant.
No one questions if you’re doing enough, especially in the South where we live, when you’re a mom. For better or worse, vocational motherhood is accepted and toxically celebrated in our part of the world here. You don’t need to do anything else to prove your worth to society.
Here I was feeling insecure about my life and work as a mother in the eyes of educated, professional, accomplished women, and she was having the opposite insecurity, feeling like she’d quite like to have the “excuse” of motherhood to fall back on in seasons where her work felt less productive.
The politics of being a woman are fraught. I wanted to share her perspective because it’s stayed with me all week, and reminded me that none of us are free from the expectations (self-imposed or not) of what it is to be an accomplished woman.
Not to get too into the weeds here, but I know men have their own version of this thing. Even though it’s completely antiquated and not fair, especially in this economy, I know my male friends tend to have wobbles and insecurities around how much they earn. If they’ve “managed” to start a family, or maintain the cultural “status symbol” of being able to support a stay-at-home-wife.
It feels absurd to even type these things out because we all know they mean nothing, we’re all out here just trying our best with the cards that have been handed to us. And yet, we all have our own version of cultural insecurity.
I wanted to share this because whatever cultural narrative you’re fighting— you’re not rich enough, straight enough, thin enough, educated enough, connected enough, etc, etc,— maybe it’s worth laying it down. Life is hard enough without fighting the made-up monsters in our brains.
Okay that’s enough on that. Thanks again for the thoughtful conversations around this topic. You all are amazing.
Below the paywall this week:
We finally painted the kids’ rooms! Pictures and paint colors and all that below.
Adventures in antique shopping
BOOKS! What I read this week, what’s next on the list.
Garden + life update
