Fairly deep for this time of day but.. who are you??

[essbee]

Message withdrawn

I'm me. After years of desperately trying to conform I realised I'm just not like everybody else and it's not going to work.

I do sort of see people by their jobs. I do think it gives you an idea of their values - eg care workers think more about people than money. Bankers I think are driven by money more than economics. Why do nurses stop at being nurses? Is it because they want to be closer to the people and aren't driven by the money and kudos or just couldn't hack the training to be a doctor either intellectually or because it takes so long?

I really want to be a vitner. This is because I want to legitimately drink wine all day and be paid for it. What does that say about my values?

I am me.

I really don't define myself by being a mother, or by what job I do. I just am me.

I guess that sounds arrogent, it isn't meant to, it is more that I am happy being me, I don't want to be anything else.

Essbee you know me in RL, who am i???

Interesting question. I think I identify myself primarily as a mother, a wife and a lawyer. Oh God, a WOHM! When I'm outside the UK, my identity becomes significantly English/European.

The other stuff is more incidental. Some small chunk of my identity is wrapped up in being the mother of children adopted from another country and being the wife of a man in a wheelchair. There is a definite feminist strand in there, but it's morphed into a sort of aspirational steely competence rather than a bra-burning angst. And at 40, my identity is definitely 'post youth'.

sorry but how can you come out with "why do nurses stop at being nurses" - I find that quite offensive and judgemental - as if most nurses would have been doctors if only they could have made the grade academically, and as if nursing is a second rate thing to do . Speechless.

I didn't read it like that mousie.
It's only a second rate option in terms of pay and perceived status - that's how I read it

I'm another me as well. Don't see myself as a mother because it doesn't come naturally to me at all. Feel fake sometimes when tell people I have kids, feel I'm doing the "talking about kids" bit, acting a bit.

Try very hard not to define people by their jobs since would hate to be defined by mine, something I fell into through inertia, doesn't represent me. Make exceptions for people who make lots of money though, think that may say something about them...

I am Jenny,
I'm a 22 (today) year old girl (not woman yet) who has just started a new career and life with her DP
Maybe next year I'll be a 23 year old mother?

mother and wife who lost her own identity
had major life crisis(still ongoing) BUT has realised that she's actually quite intelligent and dare I say attractive and is a woman now rejoining the adult world and finally beginning the long path back to a great life here in the USA (probably as a single mother)

I don't think of myself as a mum, very much.
I know I could do better, but I do o.k.

Me ?
I am very bad at expressing myself and often rub people up the wrong way - I try to work at this , permanently.
I have lots of rough edges.
But fundamentally I like myself quite alot.
I make a very good friend.
I am totally non - bitchy, non-two-faced - I am upfront.
People describe me as... "she has bollocks" - I am not wishy-washy, in any way, and I have guts.
I am short, not actually pretty, but have the most fantastic boobs.
There you go, that's me !!

i see myself as a caring, happy, helpful person, with an open mind but also a bit uneducated.

other people always seem to be more adult than me i don't really judge them unless they are obviously morons.

Sorry mousie, didn't mean to imply that being a nurse was somehow inferior (my best friend is a nurse). I was just saying that choosing between being a nurse and a doctor showed a difference in peoples values. Of course, most nurses are very academically capable, it goes without saying, my friend could quite easily have been a doctor. It's just interesting why she chose not to.

I forget what it's called, but she's currently training to be one of the top tier nurses. I think she has trained now for as many years as a doctor, but she earns far less. She doesn't care though - nursing is what she wants to do. That I think, says a lot about her. She doesn't want the status and money, just to care for people.

I'm thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat. well obviously I;m not I'm thewomenwhothoughshewasahat's real name. But my point is that I view my name as very important part of me. It's an unusal name and you can tell quite a lot from it. You can have a guess at my being middle class; you can make a stab at what part of the UK I'm from; if you tapp it into the internet you'd find me in a number of essentially random guises but they're maybe as good as anything for establishing who I am. (I come up as a signatory to an on-line petition on breast-feeding, as an entrant in an 8 mile race, as a writer of a couple of things and as my current job); you can also relate me (obviously) to my ancestors, a couple of whom did some quite interesting things in early film and photography. I love my name and it's a snapshot of various bits and pieces of me. [hat bursts into song: I AM WHO I AM DA DA DA DAH and trundles off to bed]

Still scatty.

This is a fascinating thread - I went away and gave it some thought before coming back to it.

In terms of how I identify others - it's not about jobs, or even relationships - more about personalities (eg confident, quiet, talkative, pompous etc). I think that's maybe a reflection of the place where I live - here there are so few jobs that people just do what is available, not follow a "career" as such (if you want to do that, you have to move somewhere bigger!) - so your job is not really a reflection of "who" you are.

Myself - I think I am a mass of contradictions: talkative but quite shy, appear confident but am not at all, massive problems with self-esteem (which ease gradually as the years go by but I still stress about other people's opinions of me).

When people ask about us, I think we tend to mention the hooks we hang our different hats on - eg wife, mum, teacher etc - after all it would be a bit weird if you were asked to say a bit about yourself to a group of strangers and you said "well I lack confidence in my appearance and I've never quite got over being dumped by my first boyfriend" - we tend to give out "public" information in these situations which comes back to our different roles we play.

I like to think of myself as a work in progress -(being marked or changed by major events in life, like the loss of my mother and other life-altering stuff)- before I got married, I had a very definite idea of who I was. Post-marriage, I was still me, but had somehow become something else to someone else, ie. not just girlfriend, but now wife - that changed again when I had DS - I became someone with a different identity again - both for myself and for my DH - from just wife to wife and mother - a huge leap!
But, deep inside me I am still the same core person who, for my precious sisters has not changed one bit - it's just the "hat and coat for going outside" that changes - doesn't change the fact that I am still butt-naked underneath - IYSWIM

What does it say about me that I have absolutely no bloody idea what I should post on this thread?

crazy fucked up mother/lover

a bad tempered b*tch (according to one who knows- my mother)

I am a stress junky who is not using her dramatic energy to the full.
I am a very gobby opinionated person who has a painful reaction to injustice and discrimination so is unable to 'button' it and gets into rows.
I am a creative energetic and sociable person who is not in the right place at the moment in her life.
blimey essbee.. shall I pay you for this 'public' session?

Bit scatty today.

I am an inventor.

I set up companies that buy and sell wonderful new things. I make things and create things.
I run large corporate businesses with many staff.
I design things that will change the world and the way we live.
I invent things that you didnt even know you needed.
I am very rich and have everything I need and want.

Then I stop thinking for a minute and I am a Mum washing up the breakfast things, staring out of the window at the blue sky. One day..