Visibility

Visibility.

It is something I think we all struggle with.  Because we are women because we are mothers because we live in a society that cares so much about what we look like.  We are immediately judged and are judging everyone on how we look.

It is written in our DNA, we are supposed to find the people who look like us so that we can be protected as babies.  So we can be cared for and nurtured.  So that we can belong and therefore be loved.

Yet if you have any small part of you that is an introvert, if you have ever told a secret in confidence and had that confidence spread like wildfire, then you have met up with issues around visibility.

It is not always safe to be visible, as women we inherently know this, even if we fight against it, we have been oppressed in so many different ways for so long, that we know this.  We know this. We have been oppressed in so many different ways for so long, that we know this.  We know this.

It isn’t always safe to be visible as moms.  I remember having my young daughters point out the truth of things.  My butt was getting big because I was pregnant and they told me about it repeatedly.

They watch my every move, all the time, from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to sleep and they have been doing this since the moment they were born, and they will always be doing this.  This was the burden I picked up when my first daughter was born.  This constant watching, and being the model for everything.  Because that is what our role is as mothers, there is no real getting around it.  We can deny it and pretend it doesn’t exist, but it is still there.

Because that is what our role is as mothers, there is no real getting around it.  We can deny it and pretend it doesn’t exist, but it is still there.

Lately, I have been noticing more gray hair.  It could just be that I inherited the early gray hair gene that runs in my maternal line.  Or maybe life has been stressful lately and this is the way my body is choosing to express it.  As a redhead, it is not as obvious as it would be if my hair was darker.

And so far my daughters haven’t commented on it.  But I wonder if my gray keeps coming if my youngest will remember me with red hair?  What gifts of visibility will I be handing off to her?

I constantly work with visibility in my business, in writing this weekly blog post and posting a weekly video on Facebook.  So far I am not going to lie and say it has gotten any easier.  What comes up each time changes, but easier.  Nope.

Being visible in the current world is not always easy or safe.

But the more we can be, the more we can shine our light in the darkness.  Which may help more women, daughters, mothers to shine their light as well.

How does visibility affect your parenting?