ok, I'm back in the room....
there is much that is helpful here, thank you. I want to pick up on a few things, and guess what, it's the end of the day and I'm tired, so I hope it makes sense.
I think my own feminism pre-motherhood was very tied up with work, success at work and equality of opportunity, and just the basic feeling that if you work hard, you should get reward. Yes, other things like sexist attitudes in adverts, confronting gender bias in work roles (work again) - but mainly work, and what it represented. Financial independence, identity, visibility in the world, a feeling of achievement.
It's worth acknowledging that as an educated middle class woman, work had a lot to give me, btw (I don't think this is the case for everyone). I wasn't just working to live, I've worked mainly in creative/media roles, and felt very rewarded, overall.
I think I was, pre-dc, certainly unsympathetic to mothers - I resented it when they left early to do something child related, or wanted a lot of time off over the summer, as I tended to get left with their work. i don't recall that ever being issue with the dads, who of course didn't need to leave work early if their wives did... But I think I was also a bit dismissive of mothers because I saw children as a 'lessening' of their ambition, in work terms. A retreat into the domestic sphere.
All risible stuff, I know, but I'm being honest. And you'll be glad to know a lot of that has come back to bite me on the arse anyway.
Since having ds, a lot of my thoughts about work no longer make sense to me. Are my choices (a) return to full time work asap, using full time childcare from a very early age (b) return to work full time and get dp to be a sahd (c) try and negotiate some sort of deal where we both work a bit but not as much as before (tricky - we are both self employed in a precarious industry, there isn't really a part time version of what I do, and I earn more anyway - dp could not support us both) or (c) take longer off work, and either resign myself to the hit my career is taking and adjust my expectations, or just hope that somehow being off the work radar for a few years won't be so bad.
Why is any of this a problem? well - the structural sexism of work in general, sure. Someone upthread said that in a way, doing anything in public with a child is a feminist act, and I agree - I don't want to keep mentioning children in a work context, but then neither do I want to be asked to keep to insane deadlines, or be asked at midnight to do an 8 am meeting. The truth is, yes, I DO want concessions from work because I have a child (and another on the way). I don't want to put small children into fulltime childcare if I can possibly help it. This is an emotional and intellectual decision - I don't feel like I SHOULD be ever present as a mother because I am downtrodden and have internalised maternal ideals, it just goes against every feeling I have. I never did controlled crying either, what can I say....
Before I had children, I really tried to give myself leeway to be whatever kind of parent it turned out I was - I thought, you might hate it and want to be back at work asap, you might find yourself utterly given over to earthmotherhood - you don't know, can't know, so wait and see and deal with it then. I had no 'political' objections to full time childcare for small children - but once I had one, I knew I didn't want to do it. That's as clear as I can be.
I think I have felt a bit more despairing of late because I have a job I can do from home, and be flexible about my hours almost all of the time. I keep reading about how this is the answer for working parents. Clock off to do school pick up, bed and bath etc - then sit down and work til midnight and get up at 5 am to do more before the kids get up and you do the morning run.
I tried that. I was exhausted and miserable. I neither felt happy spending time with my son, nor connected to or proud of my work. I just felt KNACKERED and ill. So I feel like even though I had the dream work/life situation that so many mothers want, I couldn't make it work.
At heart, the clearest I can be is that I would like to be relatively happy! and that means being able to enjoy having children, and to feel proud of the work I do. Not be knackered and do both badly. I don't so much feel a need to 'prove' something workwise - I'm over 40 and can look back on some decent achievements - but I want to continue to grow and explore what I can professionally. So it's not just structural - it's me. I literally can't spend all day working without getting an ache in my bones about not being with my son enough - and if I don't get time to focus on work and give it my all, I get a restless, unhappy 'craving' feeling.
My plus points (that is all a big moan, isn't it) are that I have a dp who also works from home and who willingly takes on his share of parenting. Not so much domestic work or household planning, although after a lot of friction and rows, he has significantly changed his ways and improved a lot. I am already better off than most women I know in that respect.
Maybe all this boils down to is that I had 40 odd years of living one way, and now it's taking me a while to get used to the change. But I do feel like I am lacking a template - or just the words to describe it all. When I have tried to articulate this, I quickly feel like it all gets away from me - people respond by identifying one problem and trying to 'fix' it, or giving me words that are a bit like what I mean... but also not, and take me further away from what I want to say. I loved what writehand said about going physically from being an apple to a stew or a crumpet. It was a perfect articulation.
I definitely feel like I have moved from a very 'theoretical' feminism (where gender identity was almost entirely a social construct) to a more 'lived' but muddier and more 'primal' feminism. I also feel there is more at stake, somehow.
To add to a ridiculously long post - I've been thinking today about why other mums are sometimes so defensive about their choices. I wonder if it is because they have all made choices or found themselves in positions that they are not that happy with - but don't have a better way of doing things. So their task them becomes to reconcile themselves to a very imperfect life - accentuate the positives, play down the negatives - and not open up a can of worms with any discussion about other ways of doing things. In a way, it is painful to feel there might well be a better life to be lived, if one could just work out what it was! better perhaps to say ' this IS what it is...' and just make the most of it.
Anyway, it's late, I'm tired and this is rambling. Your posts have been helpful, I will try and come back with some shorter and better organised thoughts.