I stare in horror at the words on my computer screen. The hashtag is attached to a series of interviews with authors on a parenting website. The interviews themselves are breezy, snappy and fun; profiling talented, intelligent and funny authors. Yes, the authors are all women, and yes, they are mothers.
But why #WriterMommy? Was the suffix ‘mommy’ to make the authors seem more relatable or appealing to the website’s readership? Would they not be interested in reading about authors or people who were not mothers?
Now, the voyeur in me loves reading about how other people conduct their day-to-day lives. There’s something reassuring in knowing that cool, awesome, with-it individuals also realise their child’s book report cover is due the next day and then spend 10 minutes frantically colouring outside the lines of a badly drawn fire engine, slightly drunk on their second glass of wine.
But I like reading these things because they’re written with humour and warmth. And I like reading about mothers and fathers.
As a mother and pretend writer (serious case of impostor syndrome), #WriterMommy annoys me. From the interviews, it’s clear that all the women were writers well before they had children. It’s not like having a baby activated some writing gene in them. And yes, some of them predominantly wrote books for children and young adults.
But no one refers to Oliver Jeffers as a #WriterDaddy right?
When we interview or quote male authors how often do we bring up their parental status? (When author John Banville said in an interview last year “I have not been a good father. I don’t think any writer is” his peers came out and rubbished his statement. None of the men’s tweets or quotes were hashtagged #WriterDaddy.)
But we do this with women, time and again. Is it just me, or is there a whiff of condescension to it? As though, post children, it’s a miracle we have managed to get this far and achieve something. That the odds are stacked so high against us, someone must point out and say ‘Hey look, she can write/bank/build roads/teach/sing and be a mother at the same time’.
Being a parent is a huge part of our identities and it’s hard not to let that eclipse the other things in our lives. And for those of us who freelance or hold down jobs that aren’t constricted by 9-5 working hours and the need to be in an office every day, it can seem like we are working around the whims and facnies of our children’s lives and the rinse-spin cycle. But they ARE separate things. And even though I write about my kids and being a parent every week, I still don’t want to be called a #WriterMommy. #Writer is fine. Or #PretendWriter even, because hello, impostor syndrome.
It’s important to remember that we were all something before we became parents. It can be hard to remember that person and those things can morph into something else over time. But it’s important to remember that there are parts of mothers that are separate from their children. As I like to screech at mine mid-way through a screaming match about long division: “I USED TO BE FUN YOU KNOW!”.
(The writer’s parenting philosophy is: if there’s no blood, don’t call me)