Thiscouldbearadioshow

I have been a woman for a long time. Sounds pretty obvious but what I mean is that I got the sense of being a woman and it being a condition opposed to being a man quite early in my life.
To be honest with you I also started enjoying it quite early together with discovering how womanhood was also still placing me in a minority if not in numbers at least in treatment. But as much as I was aware of it and how it affected women before me or women around me I didn't have to face discrimination so much until I reached adulthood and working life.
Of course I could spot differences of treatment (my younger brother didn't have to fight at all for going out or bringing a girlfriend home and spending the night with her at my parents which were all no nos for me. My self education as a girl was to understand that before I would become a woman I would have to deal with the fact that my image was carrying much more inuendo much before I would be aware of it and would have to deal with it. I had my bottom felt up in a bus for the first time at 13 with no signs of being anything else than a child and wearing no make up or enticing clothes. That time I felt more ashamed than angry which is wrong and probably due to the fact that I didn't understand it, wan't prepared for it and also didn't have anyone to talk about it. Somehow I built up a response and for the next years of having my bottom touched (or any other areas) I managed to never again feel ashamed or angry. (Tip for you all: if someone is touching you there is always this doubt over it being deliberate or just caused by a crowded area... Well 2 things to do in this case: 1) raise your leg and then target the foot of the potential agressor with yours (heels are welcome at this point): if he shouts loudly he might have been an innocent victim and you can apologise but if he tries to keep the expression of his pain as low as possible then you know he knows he was wrong. 2)grab the hand that is on your bottom and hold ot in the air shouting "who's hand is this that was grabbing my bottom?" - humiliation ensured for the disgusting frustrated guy who was betting on your being to ill at ease to react - i bet he will think twice next time... So yes becoming a woman meant having my bottom to be grabbed a few times and as much as it is not nice it didn't traumatise me. I was lucky to meet lots of interesting and respectful boys/men during this time and they were themselves ashamed by the behaviour of some of their kind.
At university I felt very much valued by my pairs and never felt treated any differently than my male fellow students.
I then started working. Moreso in a quite masculine environment. Well I actually did feel valued as a woman in that environment. I made progress in my career and started managing people. And more people even, mainly men and usually men older than me. I can remember showing up in meetings for the first time and probably been identified as someone's assistant at first sight but it worked for me as my potential to impress would then be bigger.
Many years after and I find myself for the first time having to think about the fact that I am a woman. The topic comes up all the time and I am not the one raising it.
In my personal life I am chased about my production of babies: when, how, when, anytime soon, when? I am 33 and I am for the first time of my life in a relationship that I deem worth sticking to for ever or as long as possible at least. I do love children and I have become a stepmother which I do really enjoy. I think that I would really like to have children of my own and have a partner who is keen. So yes potentially I could just start production.
The thing is that I do really value parenthood a lot. I don't think that I have hasd the perfect parents but I do believe that my parents made the prefect effort to raise me and I will always respect this to the most. If I was to be a mother I would like to do it in the best way to my children and would like them to be proud of their parents - this would be my commitment and I don't want to compromise in anyway about this.
So how come am I not with child yet?
Good question I would argue. To be honest since I passed 33 there is hardly any day that goes without me pondering about it. And there is a lot to ponder according to me... But let me explain and therefore go back into history...mine really.
As a little girl I never did the girly stuff and I can remember my mum questionning my attitude towards dolls and relating it immediately to my lack of motherly aptitude. My mistake was that I never held dolls in the way a mum would but instead would grab them by their hair and carry them behind me. I didn't really enjoy playing house and instead traded my doll to cars that my brother was eager to give away for my doll (!) and was incredibly imaginative about building circuits from scratch for those cars to ultimately finish into our walls, the only alternative to this being me reading any book of the household or after the public library with an appetite of an obese reader. No need to say that by my 6th birthday my mum gave up on my future skills or interest to ever be a mother.
The thing is that I was never raised as someone who would aim at being a mother as forst priority. My mum was a mother before anything else, much before! But fpr unknown reasons had decided to become a feminist after she got into not working anymore, rely on my father for financial resources and be a full time (with a lot of overtime) mother for me and my brother. I was raised by this very clever woman who was encouraging me strongly to learn a lot if I could enjoy it and carry on doing so if I had the abilities to do so as long as I couldn't be able to commit to get into a job I would commit to for my whole life. Well school turned out to be easy for me. Moreover it was something I did actually enjoy. I liked to lear, and loved to hear stories. I didn't even need to focus or listen: things said in the classroom seemed to be recorded in my brains. I never struggled with learning or being tested about it. I enjoyed proving my mastery and didn't listening to teachers. Obviously I wasn't that good at dealing with brak time or anything associated and therefore really struggled with the socialising aspect of school. But I dealt with it in my way. Which means that I never discussed it with my mother or father or anyone else (who anyway?!). I found another way. I escaped through books and movies. And it worked for a very long time. I read anything and everything. I started with what was at home. Then got the books of the neighbours (yes, these were other times), then signed up for the public library which consisted in a bus coming to our area every week and combined it with the school library. Once I finished reading what was available in the bus I made my mum take me to the city centre every week and get me a special pass for big readers so that I could borrow more books than allowd for my age group. I would read about anything. I just felt that anything I was reading about was taking me one step forward. I liked all genres and would never discriminate anything. Sometimes I would just go for one section and alphabetically go through it. Sometimes I would use the references I got from books or magazines and borrow those. Sometimes I would just randomly pick a pretty looking cover and discover after what it was about. With this technique I got to read a few books that I didn't understand at first but it would be knowingly and would make notes about it and research before I would read them again to fully understand tham or so I thought then.
My realtionship with movies followed a similar path although internet was not there yet and instead of being able to reaserch those I would have to think and relate anything I would feel or want to question to my exiating culture or put it on hold until I would build enough knowledge and experience to understand what I was seeing.
I was raised as the daughter of a reformed femisnist who was still not acting as one and I was myself craving for information and being raised by books and movies in order to be a woman of my time which I enjoyed very much so but still didn't manage to make me feel happy or gave me any tools to be able to interact with others. For you to understand my frustration I need to give you this clue: by the age of 9 I had read about friendship and love, about passiona nd decline of feelings, I had been able to understand those books but I still wasn't able to talk even in a mundaine way to the people of my classroom. This is sad, actually very sad but outstanding in a way. If you think about it I did have more theoretical knowledge about life, history, feelings, reality of life by 9 than my fellow classmates when they reached 15. As much as it could be qualified of outstanding by myself I have to sahy that I felt pretty miserable for all these years. I wish I could have had this enormous knowledge of stories and history combined together with all the fiction I read about and still had had tyhe confidence to relate to other people of my age.
Somehow I managed ot catch up. It is a long story but I will make it short here for the purpose of the story ( I will tell you at another time in full details trust me). There was no fairy godmother or makeover involved. There was just strong will and probably despair that made me take a different perspective. I didn't change. I just managed to find a different way to express myself and it worked for me.
I realise this has been a long thread and I meant to talk about motherhood but didn't even manage to get there yet.
I should therefore keep it for the next episode...

Thanks for reading my blabber Lots of love to you allxxxxxxxx

I have a mum and she is not ideal but funnily enough she remains the response to the question of who is my role model.
I just thought it would be interesting for me to describe my ideal mother considering that my actual one doesn't fit the criteria according to my standards... Strangely the prospect of writing about this makes me feel sad and guilty but this is not about criticising my mother moreso about defining what my aim should be as a mother. So let's get on with it.

The ideal mother has to be complete and happy. She has to have made choices in life that were aiming at enjoying herself and becoming her own master. She would have to be unashamed about her failures and proud of whatever she learnt out of those. She should empowered about her successes and able to recognise them and use them forward. She should be a woman who chose the man who made her happy and made sure he would be happy with her. She might have found it and still find it difficult to manage life as a couple but she believes it worth working on a relationsship once you have chosen a partner you love. She has chosen a man who chose her too and they both have plans for the future that involve them being a team whatever happens. She is together with a man who values her for many things and also wants to have children with her and agrees that in the worst case scenario they would stick to putting their potential children before anything and would enforce for these children to be in touch with both parents as much as possible.
#My ideal mother would be tender and loving but she also would make sure that her children understand what is acceptable and what is not and what is expected and what is not.
My ideal mother would create a loving environment for her partner and children and would involve them in her life and emotions. She would be able to change her mind whenever compeling arguments would be brought up. She would be showing her children that she is making mistakes sometimes but that she acknowkedges them and that she is keen to change her mind or at least consider an alternative point.
She is a woman of the world and enjoys it but always puts forward the happiness of her kids. She is open for discussion whenever she disagrees and will try to take on board any comment or disagreeing.

I realise already thta this a lot of work for a mum.

I want my ideal mum to be proud to be a mum without forgetting to be a woman and someone's partner.
I wnat her to feel pretty, desired and most of all clever and in charge of her destiny.

My ideal mother is working in a job she enjoys and has chosen. She feels that by working she is fulfilling herself and has a purpose in life. She is proud of her job and hopes that her children will do as god as she does or better interms of how they enjoy their worklife.

My ideal mum is happy to go to work but she is equally happy to think that her children will do at least as good and will enjoy it. She enjoys picking them up from school and feels comfortable about their father enjoying it as much as her.

She loves talking to her children and is happy to openly talk about life. She is not ashamed tto tell her children about her failures and will try to understand what they are going through. She wants her children to be happy and doen't fail to tell them. She avoids making them guilty about anything and tries to inspire them about what is available for them out there.

She invites them to share failures and will console them in these circumstances. She will try and guide them in life and will make sure they build a strong friends force. She will understand that she might not always be involved and accept the fact that her children are growing up and chosing other sources of advice.
She will be available but in a way that is not offensive. She will trust her children to always feel that they can talk to her in a non-judgemental way.

She will make sure that she is happy in life whatever happens to her children but will always be available for them for life advices.

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To be honest with you I am not sure I have seen such a mum so far but this is the one mum I would like to be. I have no children so far but I have a step daughter and I would even more so like to be as good as I can be for her.
I have written down what I wan t to be so now it is about me doing it - let's see if I can mae it....