How do you maintain your identity?

Here is my finished submission:
When I told people I was going back to work, they told me I must be mad. Sienna and Mercedes were not even five months old, and I had originally planned to take up to a year off. But I couldn’t wait to get back into it; I was absolutely craving the opportunity to do something that exercised my brain a little more than making baby food and doing washing. Being a mum is an amazing experience, and one I wouldn’t swap for the world, but being a mum doesn’t define who I am. It merely opens up a whole new area of my life.
I’m incredibly lucky in that my job gives me a huge degree of flexibility. I’m lucky that as a journalist I have a skill that enables me to work from home, and I’m lucky to have found an organization that is 100% family friendly, and which is entirely run by mums working from home. I get paid to do what I love, which is write, and even better, I get to write about what I love, which is my kids.
I do still have the same deadlines that I had before I had the girls, and some days they play on the kitchen floor while I sit at the kitchen table frantically trying to bang out a column or the last few words of a feature, but for the most part my being a working mum doesn’t impact on the kids in a negative way.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It impacts on the kids, and on our family as a whole, in a positive way. Being a working mum has allowed me to maintain my identity, to be Emma Fahy the writer as well as Emma Fahy the mum of three beautiful girls. It gives me a different perspective, an area of my life that is all about ME and what I am good at and it has helped me to maintain a healthy self-esteem despite the battering that having twins might have given it. I have the perfect balance. I get to be a mum, I get to be a writer, I get to be just plain old me.

Maya wrote: "They call me mum, but my name is, ummm... - maintaining your identity after you have kids".

Interesting when my grandmother introduces herself to people, she refers to herself as Nana, and asks everyone to call her 'Nana'.
She's been Nana for over 35 years so I guess that is how she sees herself. I don't think she's been referred to by her christian name for a long time.

Very good thread/question.

For me, my identity has been changing since I've had kids, and before that when i got married. and before that when i went to Ucol and through all the jobs i've had.

I think I'm similar to busymum in that the majority of my identity isn't found through my work (although it IS a substantial portion of my life and helps to shape my ID). To some extent it's not even found in what I do.

It's a tough question to answer. My ID can partly be found in the people that I surround myself with. I can find parts of my ID with other people, with the work i do, but that's still not me. What is me? The way I react? My attitudes? Who am I?

I don't know who I am. That's been part of the journey for me - realising that I don't actually know who I am and what I want. I've found some things I like by doing them. Things like getting married and having kids has taught me about life, about myself, and about God, in ways that you can only understand by having kids. I cannot explain to someone who has not had children, the pain of seeing fear in their eyes. Or the joy of hearing their laughter. But those still aren't who I am.

Like I said Maya. It's a good question. Who am I? How can you maintain an identity if you can't even answer that question? I can answer things I like, things I don't like, Things that bother me and upset me, things that make me happy, things that I do and don't want to do. But I seriously cannot tell you how I maintain my Identity. It's continually getting changed. I am not the boy i used to be, nor the man i imagined myself to be. I am not the person I want to be, but I'm happy with who I am. Who am I? I won't allow anyone else to answer that for me. They cannot know who I am.

It haunts me.




Edited by Chovynz

Kels wrote: Hmmm now this has made me think hard.

I know! It got me thinking too! Hence why I thought it would make an interesting thread.

And deep, Chovy, real deep!

OMGosh Lyla you should be a writer !!!! Very well written Nearly a hallmark moment ..hahaha

The question of identity is one I've struggled with all of my life, as I had an abusive, overbearing father whose main goal was to obliterate any sense of self his children possessed, and to replace it with his own version of the truth. So for a long time, I genuinely didn't know who I was. It wasn't until I moved out of my parents' house and went away to university that I started to define myself. I went to an all-female Catholic university, which you would think would be the most constrictive, identity-repressing environment imaginable, but was actually exactly the opposite -- it was the most open, liberal, questioning, thoughtful, introspective experience of my life, and had I not gone to that university, I'd never have met my husband and I wouldn't be writing this message now.

I look back on those four years at university as the defining years of my life, when I learned the most about myself, my strengths and weaknesses, my dreams and fears, my beliefs and values. So when I get to the point when I feel like I don't know who I am, my starting point for recapturing my identity is to mentally go back to that time and rebuild the little blocks of myself, using all of the things I discovered about myself during that time -- writer, friend, activist, volunteer, survivor... too many to count. Now, of course, I can add new blocks -- wife, mother, expat, immigrant, adaptor -- and the blocks change over time. I think that identities are always evolving, and the one thing I learned along the way is that there is no single word or phrase to describe my identity. It's always changing, and the best thing I can do is to hang in there during the times when I'm confused and lost and start building those blocks again when I'm calmer and my sight is clearer.

I have a postcard somewhere with this quote on it: "Be willing to relinquish the life you've planned, so as to have the life that's waiting for you." That sums it up for me -- identity is a fluid, ever-changing thing for me, and the best thing I can do for myself is to learn to let go of what was, in order to see what is, and to be open to what will be.

I too work....and that is what makes me complete and enables me to give of my whole self...and to be a better mummy....aad wife. I know some people dont agree with that but if I didnt have my work in which I invest my mind, support others, help people and showcase my talents, then I would not be the most rounded mother for my daughter.

I know that i have added the title and roles of mother and wife in recent times, but to me I am so much more. I am a woman, I am independent when i want to be, I am supported when i want to be, I have been the victim, I have been the survivor - I wont say I AM cause I have passed that so i have been....I am a traveller, I am a writer, I am a shopaholic, I am a collector, I am a friend, i am sometimes a foe, I am a daughter, I was a grandddaughter, I have so many sectors of my identity that are always growing and changing.

I maintain my identity by allowing myself to grow and change as my needs, wants and those around me change. In time I will be a mother again - and if DH doesnt behave at times, I might be a divorcee or even a widow, I will one day be a grandmother (god forbid), and I know there will be other things I will add to my list as time goes on....

I will embrace change and personal growth for that is what allows me to grow and with that my identity is maintained.

i don't

Wow!! that is a good question and one which has been haunting me as I enter motherhood.

I have always struggled with defining myself by my career. A lot of my peers do just this and dedicate their life to their profession. That is just not me. I decided long ago that I didnt want to die and be thought of a a great optometrist (who would?) but as a great mother, wife, friend, daughter etc etc. Is that enough? I am not sure and I will soon find out.

I have just hadmy first week off work and I admit to sitting here thinking "what do I do? What use am I?" So even though I wasnt a huge fan of my job I did feel needed and now I am in between things. I am sure I will adapt.

I look at this as moving on to a new stage in my life as busymum says and hoping that being a mum will help define another part of who I am. But I will always be ME!!! (whoever Me may be(come))

Someone asked me yesterday what I have been doing with myself apart from being mum to my two kids, apart from my papers at uni I really did not have any answer for them.

Sometimes i feel that my only identity is being a mum, I love my kids but crave more. This is absolutely something that I need to think about and work on!