Marrit's new column in AustinMama

For any mom who's put the contents of her day into writing and wondered if it was worthwhile, skip over to AustinMama.com and read Marrit Ingman's inaugural column on why motherwriting matters. I've been feeling this more acutely lately. Last week when I showed up at work with my baby in sling after the babysitter had backed out, I felt it, that nagging worry that babies don't matter and they should be kept away from real work, that they aren't real work. I felt it. Me. Second time mom after seven years who's written about such things intimately and intensely, me, who goes about trying to inspire other moms in their efforts to value all their work and live whole lives. When I returned home that day and set down to write about it, I found myself worrying again: is this worthy of words? Thank you Marrit for shouting out a yes, and reminding us all why. Here's her final paragraph, in my opinion a classic:

"I’m going to bore you with anecdotes about how the in-store music at HEB really sucked yesterday while I was picking up a king-sized pack of string cheese and dish soap. That’s the stuff that’s on my mind. Having to be fascinating and trenchant all the time in your personal musings is a kind of tyranny imposed on a writer. My to-do list does not include fighting the straw woman of Mommy (for the record, my child has called me Marrit since he acquired language). I’m going to embrace her and dance with her, and if I need to change partners later in the evening, I will. We should write about the experience of motherhood in whatever language comes from our hearts: exultation, crushing boredom, frustration, bemusement, righteous anger, fluff, or any combination thereof. Evidently it makes a lot of people furious. We must be doing something right."