Only 8 weeks to go
til I have my baby girl and my burgeoning belly now feels like a time bomb
ticking. I am both thrilled and terrified at the prospect of having a daughter.
On the one hand, it’s what I always wanted, being a proper girly-girl myself -
[def. girly-girl: noun A person of female gender who enjoys feminine pursuits
i.e. make-up, nail varnish, clothes shopping and gossip] – I always imagined
having a daughter who I would be really close to, who would share her secrets
with me and seek advice from me. When I found out I was having a boy I was a
little reticent about having to find enthusiasm for cars, trucks and brutish
sports.
I am aware that there
are benefits to the mother-son and mother-daughter relationships and I am SO
lucky to be able to experience both. But here’s the kicker – for some reason I
am more afraid of f*cking it up with a girl. I may have touched upon this in
previous posts. I hope I’m not denigrating the importance of boys’ self esteem,
but I just think that in our society, girls’ self esteem is more delicate.
Perhaps because my son seems to have the innate confidence of his father I
don’t worry about his sense of self. He regularly demonstrates his strength of
character and it’s a big relief to me.
But a daughter, who
stands the chance of bearing as strong a resemblance to me as my son does,
faces the challenges I had to face growing up. And they weren’t pretty. Because
I wasn’t pretty. Now, don’t jump to your feet to protest, that wasn’t me fishing
for compliments (it would be futile if I was, since this blogging business is
like shouting into the wind – I get no response or feedback and never know who,
if anyone, is reading it or if they are scoffing, laughing or yawning). Let me
qualify that, there are people out there who are conventionally attractive, who
can get jobs as models and actors etc. and there are those who aren’t. I am in
the latter category. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no pile of dog-poo to look at.
But I inherited the hefty sized proboscis of my ancestry – yep I had a big
shnozz. I say “had” because, at the age of 30 I had a nose-job. It was
ostensibly to fix some sinus problems, but let’s face it, I just hated my nose
and had wanted to change it my whole life.
I have always been
painfully conscious of all of my shortcomings, but I believe in doing what I
can to improve myself. So this
seemed logical to me, as my nose had long-dominated my very negative view of
myself. And it was simple, I had the operation and I didn’t all of sudden
become a supermodel, but the burden of that glaring physical “fault” was
lifted. Now it’s important to note that I did this for myself. Although sadly
my negativity towards my nose was very much influenced by society and personal
experience – yep you guessed it, kids can be cruel and there were taunts at
school – I didn’t have unrealistic expectations about other people’s reactions
towards me post-op. I had already found love, and married him, and he had said
nothing to prompt my decision. I had no expectations of career changes or
advancement from it. In fact I wanted nothing in my life to change really,
other than my own happiness when I looked in the mirror. And that did.
BUT… how does this
reconcile with the fact that my heart will break if my own daughter goes
through this? I feel such a hypocrite saying I want my children to love
themselves, inside and out, when I was so unable to do so. I keep wondering
what sort of example have I set them?
I can only hope they
see it this way. I was not seeking a “quick-fix” in life. I was not unhappy in
love, nor in my life in general. I did not expect the change in my appearance
to herald a barrage of suitors, to launch a new career, to attract a new class
of friends. I just wanted the inner peace of liking what I saw in the mirror.
And being someone who is driven and motivated, who believes in shaping her own
destiny and making her own path in life, I took action. I do not regret the
action. What I do regret is that the world did not say to me “everyone is
beautiful: fat is beautiful, thin is beautiful, your big nose is as beautiful
as you are unique” right from birth. And although I intend to say this to my
daughter repeatedly I know it may not be enough.
Now for the politics
part of this post. Because almost one month after this baby girl enters the
world we will have a federal election. And so my daughter may begin life in a
country that has a female PM, or under the government of a man who has said things
like:
I think it would be
folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal
representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes,
abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.
While I think men and
women are equal, they are also different and I think it's inevitable and I
don't think it's a bad thing at all that we always have, say, more women doing
things like physiotherapy and an enormous number of women simply doing
housework.
Now I know that the
current PM, female or not, is not doing the best job of it, and she certainly
didn’t come to power in the way I would’ve liked. But the fact remains she is a
strong woman in the ultimate position of power and she is setting a very visible
example for Australian women. It may be true that she isn’t well-liked. But she
is a politician, and how many of them do we, the public, actually like? Sadly
the less likeable, the more successful they seem to be in politics (see
Rudd/Howard). She certainly isn’t the first pollie to demonstrate
underhandedness in gaining power or to be unpopular amongst her caucus. But the
mere fact that she is there, doing what the rest of them do, gives me, and all women
of Australia hope.
So despite the
atrocious odds the opinion polls give her, I hope she can hang on til after the
election (and then be deposed by Rudd). I’d like my daughter to start life with
as many examples of the many wonderful opportunities she will have as possible.
