tattoo

For the past few months, I've been thinking about getting a tattoo. It started pretty innocently. At work, we started joking about getting tattoos to celebrate a co-worker's 30th birthday. I have never wanted a tattoo, even though makes me the minority in my own family. My mom went to get a circle of roses around her ankle to celebrate her 50th birthday. She said she always wanted one, but worried she would regret it. At 50, she realized she was old enough to make a smart decision. My brother got his first of many tattoos soon after his 18th birthday. It's a piece of black art on his upper back.

"What does it mean?" I asked him when he first came home with it.
"Nothing."
"What do you mean, nothing? You just got a tattoo you are going to have forever that doesn't mean anything?"
"Yeah, so?"

I thought maybe when I got older, went to college, I would understand. But I never did. My dad thought tattoos were gross, my former boyfriend didn't think they were pretty, and I just couldn't imagine why I would want to purposely sit for an hour and feel pain.

As we sat around talking about tattoos at work, I started to wonder what I would get even thought I knew I would never actually get anything. I thought about potential placements and what would look good there, but more importantly, what I could get that would really mean something to me.

A few weeks later, I discovered the Pen & Ink blog, which relates the stories behind people's tattoos. One of the first posts was from a man who had a rabbit on his back. He explained, "I got this tattoo because I suspected one day I would think it would be stupid."

That's when I got it. Getting a tattoo wouldn't be about what I actually got placed on my skin, I would be about the fact that I did it. It would be a constant reminder that there was a time in my life when I chose to go through something painful because I knew I would be more beautiful afterwards. And how could I ever regret that?

work

These bumper stickers that say Every Mother is a Working Mother are bullshit. Propaganda of the affluent. And an insult to actual working moms with jobs."
-- A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore

When Obama supporter Hilary Rosen claimed that Ann Romney had never worked a day in her life, she ignited a firestorm of criticism. It started with Ann Romney saying that raising five sons was hard work, moved to Rosen apologizing for what she said, and ended with President Obama saying Rosen said the wrong thing. What she said was politically incorrect, but it was not incorrect. The problem here, is the definition of work. For Romney, work is something that is hard but rewarding. For working mothers, work is something you need to survive. 


The work Ann Romney did for her kids was the same work my mother did for me and my brother when we were growing up. It was the same work that every attentive mother does. My mom took us to and from school, made our lunches, came to every sporting event or band competition. She was there for us when we needed help with our homework, she fed us every meal, and took us shopping for new clothes and school supplies at the beginning of each year. All of those things are hard, and draining, and she did them because it was what was best for us.


My mother also had to do more, though. She had to go to her job every single day because she needed to earn money for us to live. She didn't do this because she wanted us to have a nicer house, or a fancy car, or the trendiest clothes. She did it because she needed us to have a house, a car, any clothes. She worked because had to.


I go to my job every day because if I didn't, I wouldn't have any money to pay rent or buy food. There is no other option. At night or on the weekend, I choose to do chores that are not that fun. I wash my clothes, wash my dishes, clean my bathroom, go to the gym. I do these things because it is for the best, even though it is also hard and draining. 


When my mom chose to have kids, just like Ann Romney, she made the decision that she wanted the reward of having kids even though it meant having to do a lot of things that are hard. The selfless decision that women make to have children in the first place is something to be admired, but let's not kid ourselves. The choice to have children, with everything it entails, is not the same as the need to survive.