Tuesday 2 February 2010

Which Mole Waddles?

Inspired by Raising my Boychick I thought I should untangle my conflicting female role models (or 'mole waddles' as I once said in a drunken debate - note to self: I have no head for alcohol since becoming a Mum).

Don't you just love a woman just responds to winning a Nobel prize with 'Oh, Christ'. Yes, Doris Lessing has balls to spare. This video of her hearing about the Nobel prize always raises a smile.

I love Doris Lessing, she has incisive intelligence, she fights for her ideals, bites the hands that feed her, she is rude, she is articulate and she is brilliant. She writes what she believes in and, boy, does she do it well!

Hold on, you may ask, didn't she abandon her kids when she left Southern Africa? Yes, and she has never apologised or sought to justify her decision. How can this woman be a role model? As a parent she definitely is not!

Let me explain my other role model. Frances is not famous, she does not aspire to be. She is just a friend of mine who I have not seen for a few years since she went to live in a deserted part of Kerry in rural Ireland. She is, however, my other role model. Just seeing her and her son together just made me realise how rewarding parenting could be.

What is so special about Frances as a Mum? Like Doris, she worked things out for herself. She read and she read, not baby manuals but about human development about psychology and about the things that underpin how we really work, then she got stuck in and enjoyed! I have never seen such joy at parenthood; she took the time to explore life afresh through her son's eyes.

My role models are conflicting and I don't aspire to fully emulate either. I do hope that I emulate their clarity and intelligence, I hope that I can blow raspberries in the face of convention when it runs counter to my family's best interests. I hope to have integrity at all times, to see beauty and to realise that there is always something to learn. Yes, I seem to have problems with conventional role models/ mole waddles but I can be inspired by, and celebrate, the diversity of amazing women out there (in my own way).

2 comments:

  1. Wow so glad I found you through Josie's WW. I love this post probably because I am also an aficcionado of Doris Lessing's. You do write well and come across as articulate so keep up the good work. Do let me know if u r on twitter. Am now following to see what else u write. Thanks.

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  2. Thank you for such a lovely comment! i have added a link to my twitter MOIxx I also write another blog http://motherofinnovation.blogspot.com/ but it was a bit business focused. i had been so inspired by the blogs from josie's amazing workshop that i had to start a whole new blog to focus on the project. (i am writing one handed i have a sleeping toddler in the other)

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