My White Crayon Moment

A few months ago, my 2 year old daughter said something that stirred my inner maternal activist and I haven't been the same since then.

In her box of crayons there is a white one that she will try to use on her white paper from time to time, but of course, the markings are invisible to her. She usually says something like, "Mommy, that one has no power" and hands it off to me... I'm not sure if she wants me to fix it or just complain about this injustice of having a crayon that she believes doesn't work.

So one morning I dug through my closet until I found some dark green paper. I handed her the white crayon and said, "Here, try this." She scribbled for a while on the dark green paper and then she said, "Oh, this one has power!"

It struck me that this was an interesting choice of words for such a little girl... that she chose the word "power" to describe being visible and making a mark within her own tiny world. It was a great reminder for me that being invisible does not mean we do not have power. So much of the caregiving and domestic work that mothers do is, indeed, invisible, but it is not powerless.

To show other moms the power of a white crayon, and that invisible work is still real work, I created a workshop for members of Mothers & More, a national organization dedicated to mothers as individuals. It will also be presented at the 2009 Mothers & Madness / Mamapalooza Conference in New York City in May. In this workshop, I ask participants to write down one important caregiving task they've recently performed; but they have to write it with a white crayon on a white piece of paper. They can then show their neighbors what they wrote, but of course, the writing is invisible to all. It's a frustrating experience, if only briefly, to be unable to show what you've done. I then ask the participants to write the same task on a colored piece of construction paper where everyone can now see what they wrote. Participants feel relieved and more relaxed after their work can be seen and we discuss the real life "white crayon moments," such as:

• your husband comes home and asks what you've done all day
• you find yourself justifying an absence from the workforce to a stranger at a cocktail party
• you struggle to explain in a job interview how you've used your skills while raising children
• you find yourself covering up your mother-work while at your paid job because you intuitively understand that it is not taken seriously in the workplace
• your friends tell you that it must be nice not to have to "work" as they imagine you watching the View, Dr. Phil and Oprah all day -- do they think the kids care for themselves?

Doing the work of motherhood is like writing with a white crayon. However, as I see it, there are two ways to deal with the frustration and sense of powerlessness this can create. One way is to shift your perspective (i.e., look at the white writing against a different background). When you talk with other mothers who understand just how real the work of caregiving is, it's like having that colored piece of paper there, suddenly showing you that the work you did was real. The other solution is to use all your crayons... in other words, use all your skills, discover all your interests and live out all your passions to the extent you can.

Just because you are a mother does not confine you to only coloring in white crayon.