Mum’s the Label

A person close to me said ‘well you’re a housewife now’ and I was disappointed to hear this but I also have been looking at everything that’s been produced that puts mums and women into categories, though the latter I’ll save for another poem.

There’s so much written on working mums, stay at home mums, studying mums, in fact anything that could put a mum into a category. I also see people label themselves as this and I think, why are we doing this to ourselves? The more these articles are written, the more these roles, that don’t capture us, are carved out.

These casts seek to enslave us and by acknowledging them we give them power. 

Personally I think we are greater than the sum of one thing and what we’re capable of is ever changing and unknown.

Mum’s the label

‘You’re a housewife now’. She says judgmentally. As if I’ve dropped status monumentally. Click To Tweet

‘You’re a housewife now’. She says judgmentally.

As if I’ve dropped status monumentally.

I think, is your opinion worth a reply?

Do I put my focus on your small-minded eye?

Am I? Because I’m still figuring me out.

Do you have to be so rigid on life’s roundabout?

Then here I am in the age-old debate,

Fuelled by another woman, now that’s a mistake.

Here you are trying to define me, why bind me?

And join the crap that starts from when a girl’s a baby.

Are you a working mum? Is that all you are?

Of course not. So don’t make me reach to burn my bra.

Why would you want to put a cap on what we do?

Unless you want to help bring down our value?

Here’s a circling debate that bores me to tears,

Let’s hope every limiting title disappears.

We’re not one thing and I can’t sum up in rhyme,

How making labels is a waste of our time.

So I’m a housewife but that’s not the end

There’s a list, commas no stop because I transcend.

Mama Grace

 

This post first appeared on http://www.meetothermums.com