“So mum, when are you going to get a job?”

“Yeah… what do you do?” pipes up the little one.

It’s uncanny timing that my kids asked these questions because I’ve been feeling a bit itchy lately… needing and wanting “something”. I have been stalking ‘Seek’ for jobs and cursing myself a bit for not having finished some study that I started *ahem* 4 years ago. (I’m not so good on the “self paced” style).

Anyway, life has a funny way of unfolding and I’ve been boldly reminded that it’s just not the right time yet to make any major changes within the Hooch household. My need to feel like a worthy contributor in the world, beyond family and farm is filled with other things for now. But what am I looking for? Why isn’t this enough? Am I having a mid-life crisis? Perhaps I’m just tired? It’s possibly just Term 4 or a case of 2020. It might even be the Spanish pizza guy from Woodville. Whatever it is, it’s an itch that needs a scratch.

Maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that I’ve been taught not to value the women who are the scaffolds for their families as much as I have been taught to value the women who smash glass ceilings, all the while maintaining a marriage, kids and relationships with what appears, the greatest of ease.

Yes… you go girl. Climb that corporate ladder, launch that business, chase the dream, you do you, lead the way for other women. Hit those goals, know no limits. Earn big bucks, get the degree.

These women are admired and put on pedal stools and bravoed. They win awards and have their names and achievements splashed around. These are the women who we tell our little girls they can be like when they grow up. Often who they SHOULD aspire to be. These are the women we look up to, and feel we should be striving to emulate even just at a micro level. They are the women who are smashing those ceilings.

And then there’s women like me.

There’s lots of women like me.

I don’t see a glass ceiling. I see a dirty floor that needs washing and school notes that need filling in.

As much as I am an absolute supporter and cheer squad for women who achieve brilliance in their lives, excel in their chosen pursuits and smash some ceilings, I wonder sometimes, who is cheering for the other kinds of amazing women?

I love that we have freedom of choice more than ever before. I love that we aren’t restrained to the limits of past generations, but what about those of us who, through choice or circumstance, find ourselves living a life that is deemed to many as ‘less than’. It can sometimes feel like we’ve let the team down.

Most women don’t get glorified accolades that come with being the glue that holds the world together. And let’s face it ladies. We are the ones holding this shit show together.

So this post is dedicated to the women who sit in the background, who may run a bit of a side hustle from time to time, or have the backburner dreams and ideas bubbling away waiting for when the time feels right to crank the heat up.

This is for those of us who support our family’s in ways they don’t even know about because we’ve given them the freedom and luxury to not have to think about it. The unpaid labour and emotional load of being part of the blocks that the world sits upon, can sometimes get heavy. It took me a really long time to allow myself to feel tired without needing a better reason than “life is just making me tired this week” or wanting a “day off” from my apparent life of “days off”.

So go us. We’re not smashing glass ceilings, maybe one day we will.

Right now we’re the framework holding up the ceilings that wait to be smashed, which couldn’t be done without us.

M