Costume angst... and then some

Bekki just posted on her blog (see Professor Poop link on my sidebar) about finding her daughter, Noa, just the perfect Halloween costume. It really struck a chord with me as I have been in a similar situation.

My mom, too, made my Halloween costumes. Not once did I wear a plastic costume from ToysRUs with a mask of Wonder Woman rubber-banded onto my head. Oh no, I was a little Dutch girl (complete with yellow yarn braids and "wooden" shoes, thank you), a clown, a Native American princess (just plain Indian princess back then), and one particularly lean (financially) and creative year, some sort of alien. My brothers were Ghostbusters, Hans (or Franz, I am not sure which), and one was once a tube of toothpaste with a lampshade on his head for the cap (maybe that is the answer, Bek!). So here I am, approaching my daughter's first Halloween and there is not a lick of creativity in my bones.

Sure, I could make her a pumpkin, cat, or bunny easily enough. But there is just no pizazz in those. No spunk. Nothing special. As I thumb through my magazines, I see simple homemade costumes but feel no love for them. So I have done the unthinkable. I have purchased a ready-made Halloween costume. Yes, I hear the collective gasp from you all. But I just can't do it. I do not have the energy. That, and I think I am fulfilling that deep, quiet childhood part of me that always wanted that Wonder Woman costume.

This brings me to my next point. There is a legacy that my Mom is making of homemade bread and jam, home-cooked family dinners every night, sewing clothes and even making Cabbage Patch dolls that I am not carrying on very well. Much of this legacy has been formed while trying hard to make ends meet when I was a kid, and I know that. But it is almost a part of my DNA now to want to do those things. The biggest difference between me now and my mom then?? I work.

I always thought I would be a partial reincarnation of June Cleaver. Even while getting my doctorate, I pictured myself as a full-time stay-at-home mom. I'd have the house clean every day, meals on the table by 6, perfect flower beds, crafts for the kiddies every afternoon and my 6-month-old would not even know who the heck Dora the Explorer is because I would magically shower while she was taking the perfect late-morning nap. Ha! You would think that a psychologist would recognize a delusional fantasy when she is having one.

The more I do this Mom thing, however, the more I realize that the only way a woman will "have it all" is if that "all" includes a nanny, cook, housekeeper, and possibly chauffeur. I don't want those things. I want what I have, really, and need to remind myself that just because I do not knead our bread, I am not a bad mom. Ella has 2 full weekdays with me and weekends with Scott and I and she also gets to spend 2 partial days with my parents and a few hours one day with her aunt and cousin. I wouldn't trade my childhood with an at-home mom for anything, but I live a different life and am a new hybrid of 50's housewife and post-70's career woman. Ella will see what it is like for a mom to balance work, home and relationships. And if I can help it, she will feel loved and secure and will know that I am always, always here for her.

I am sure that we will make jam sometimes, because I love to do it. I will certainly offer to teach her to knit and cross-stitch and garden and bake and she will absolutely know the proper way to hang clothes on the line in the summer. I will pass down to her my housekeeping "bible". But I will never be June Cleaver. I don't own a strand of pearls, and if I did, I would not wear them to make meatloaf on Tuesday night. And Ella's first Halloween will not be spent in a homemade costume. I'm sure the guilt will pass.