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Recently a friend sent me an article about the dangers of idealizing motherhood. As a mother, and as a new foster mother (with a newborn laying here beside me), I’m rushing to say amen before the author gets to the end. I don’t like to be called an angel or a saint in my work as a mother. I don’t adore being a mother all the time. It’s hard work. And the work has yet to sanctify my brain of all the tired, angsty words churning through it when I have to get out of bed in the middle of the night. At least I’m keeping most of them to exhausted self. The notion that motherhood ought be seen as a relationship instead of a role, was the highlight of the piece, and the dissipation of any guilt about my crankiness for waking during the dark hours.  Moving from role to relationship makes motherhood a lot less about who you are, and what you do, less task oriented, to how you interact with others; requirements are less defined, and relations become more central to success. That’s a messy sentence, but something like that.

But beyond motherhood, parenthood. It isn’t about what I do alone, it’s what we each do and often do together as parents (and all that participate in the process of parenting children, the friends, teachers, and mentors who become family). It’s a relationship for a family, not just a mother.

I loathe angel mother talks and characterization not because I don’t measure up as a mother; no, it’s because they are flat. They only show an idealization, a “perfect” person that does not think, work, fail, and struggle as real people do. I think putting women and especially women as mothers on a pedestal is condescending in a warped way because then they aren’t allowed to be fully human, any symptoms of humanity, imperfections, don’t have room to exist in that model.

I like art. A lot. Not like an educated person because I know loads about it, but because the humanity and reality of good art speaks to me. Especially nudes. I know this might read as bizarre. Stay with me. I remember feeling that as a good modest Mormon I should shy away from those, the body is sacred and private for that reason. Years and years ago I was in an art gallery and saw a painting with a name and by an artist I cannot recall. There was a woman, with her dress falling away from her, her bare, small chest exposed; it looked like my own. Yet, the look in her frame and eyes was entirely unashamed. Daring, bold and entirely comfortable with herself. Unsexy, but sensual in its forthrightness, the look was so open, unfettered and free. I’ve felt self conscious often for feeling like my lack of curves belies my womanliness, my maturity, or sisterhood of shared experience (even if that is not being able to moan about bouncy boobs when exercising, whatever). It evoked something deep inside me and I couldn’t look away from that painting. I kept coming back to it. I still do. There she was beautiful, bold and on display without shame or hiding what she lacked or was gifted with. She was enough and she knew and dared you to question otherwise, she was comfortable in her own skin, even if it wasn’t ideal.

The best nudes, sculptures, sketches, photographs, and portraits aren’t airbrushed or trimmed to look right, they are made to represent the reality, in whatever fashion the artist sees fitting. They just are. The body as it is is enough. Art. The movement, the lines, the curves, the shapes all work. Gloriously. Each nude is stripped away of the extras, all that is left is form and function; they’re myriad, and never flat.

As a Mormon girl raised on modesty, and in a culture (and sometimes garment lines) that values the one size fits most approach, this notion was wild. That there is not just room for variation and differentiation in sizes and presentation, but that they all work. Each body, stripped down to nothing, but as God made it is enough. It can work as it is. It can pump blood, move limbs, carry burdens. bleed, smell, weep, taste, touch, rage, shudder with pleasure, or prickle at a pinprick, even if each body does it in it’s own variation of the original design, it still gets the job done. Each imperfect, perfect body is ever so much more lovely and recognizable for it’s blessed uniqueness.

I don’t want to stand on a pedestal or see someone else there either. I don’t want a model or “angel mother” ideal with flat undefined features. I’d rather see the imperfections that mark each woman as human brazenly, proudly, openly displayed, because they show her as she is, not just as an idea of what she ought to be, ignoring the fullness of her figure or the slightness of her stance. It is far more powerful and humbling to show the full picture, the scars, the stoop, the strained muscles and the sagging flesh. That tells a story, That is a person; someone I can relate to. Probably someone like myself. Like the painting, I’d like to see women shown unafraid, without idealization, and enough.

We are enough as we are. But, yes, we’ve all got room within our souls and skin to stretch and strengthen. I don’t believe a pedestal is necessary to motivate us to do that. Like a projector, idealization only puts forth an over-sized, unattainable flat image. Walk up to it- it can’t be touched or handled. It’s just a projected image and certainly not human.

If we were made modeled after God, naked as we are, we are inherently good. And varied as we are, all women are still modeled after goodness. Herself. I think these variations of skin and shape allowed to us are a God-given opportunity to see them as beautiful and to see the beauty beyond them. Naked and nude, and even when we’re not. She, and They are perfect. We are not, but we are enough right now.

Mostly I think They want us to be happy.  Rejoice in what is good, in ourselves and especially in others.  Seek to be better, without seeking and (most likely) failing to become some intangible, imagined ideal.

Mothering, parenting, and just being is hard enough as is.


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