parenting (Page 2)

Coming “out of the closet” about my financial situation’s dire state turned out to be a good move. People have flooded me with what feels like genuine hugs and applause.
After that post, a friend asked me how much I charge for my work. When I told her, I felt the smothering feeling of shame again. Yes. On the grantwinners.net website I note our typical fee is $75/hour. How can someone who charges that rate possibly require assistance from the government?
As I said earlier, I’m antsy about having gone public with my situation because I believe it could hurt my business. Because I’m not “hiding” here, I considered posting on doinggoodbetter.org (the blog for grantwinners.net) but I believe these thoughts belong here.
How can someone who charges $75/hour possibly require assistance from the government?
Working as a consultant means no benefits, no paid time off, nothing provided by someone else (office, computer, supplies, phone, website), and carries with it loads of expenses that many of us are terrible about tracking (marketing, admin). The fees we charge need to take these things into account. The client doesn’t pay all the overhead, of course, but the real costs of doing business need to be included when the fees are estimated. That said, with contracts or when we work using a “by the project” fee structure, the rates are typically lower than $75/hr.
No matter what rates are charged, however, I don’t see most of the money. This is how grantwinners.net works (clients know about this process): Initially, I work with new clients directly. Soon after the work begins, I find a good match from among the grantwinners.net team members (independent consultants) and I subcontract work to them. Thankfully the group I’ve got are very talented and dependable professionals. But, I don’t take much “off the top” of the fees the client pays. I learned in the last couple years that I usually don’t take enough. Finding people who do the job very well but will accept what is essentially a “below market” rate can be very challenging. A couple of my best subcontractors are executive directors of non-profit agencies doing work on the side (not depending on the work to survive). I have a few very bright women I’ve been training who have had very little experience winning grants. They are quick learners, but it takes more of my time to process their work because I need to be sure our clients are getting what they are paying for. People trying to make a living as grant writers generally need to be paid what I need to be paid, not less than that.
The time required to nurture relationships that might blossom into professional partnerships is time I haven’t had available based on my choice to focus on my children. I also tend to shoot myself in the foot (“don’t hire me”) because I believe so sincerely that most nonprofit organizations should be winning their own grants, not hiring consultants. Because I don’t think I offer (through the grantwinners.net team) some kind of magic potion that will get grants for organizations, I can’t in good conscience try to convince someone to hire us. I’m not a “direct sales” kind of person. I can discuss their needs and let them know what we can do, but I won’t say “if you hire us, you’ll get better results.” It doesn’t always work that way, though sometimes it does. (There are some very common mistakes people make in grant writing that I forget aren’t common knowledge. Just simple things, like, if the grant maker says a proposal should be no more than two pages, that means no more than two pages.)
Because of the work I have done, and the relationships I already have, grantwinners.net has had great clients in the last few years. Not many, but as this blog describes in more detail elsewhere, it’s been a Hell of a last few years. The post about being on food stamps and looking into additional support options describes where I am now.
As I’m writing this, I’m thinking, “Who on earth will find this interesting?” The answer is, “These are things I need to say.”
I feel guilty, less-than-deserving of the support I’m getting from the government, when I discuss my business rates in the same breath as “government assistance.” My business has the potential to be a decent source of income, but it isn’t my top priority. That is probably one of the most difficult phrases I’ve written in all of this (“it isn’t my top priority”). Amazing how awful that feels. My children are my top priority. That shouldn’t feel bad to write or say.
I won’t take on work that I won’t be able to do well. This means I haven’t taken on much work (or, rather, I haven’t followed up on requests for more information). As my 3-year-old gets older, I will make more time for growing my business. For now, I need to keep it very basic and simple and know that putting my children first, for me, means being with them more than it means going to meetings to try to drum up new business. Time with my children comes first. I’m going to keep saying that until I don’t feel guilty when I say it.

A few days ago I was singing a song while my older daughter read her book nearby. She was also, of course, listening. In fact she was watching, too, and it was lovely. It added to the intimacy of the moment.
After I finished she asked me what the first words of the song were. On hearing them she burst out with, “Mommy, that’s just like you!” The song was “Nobody’s Girl” by Bonnie Raitt and the first words are, “She don’t need anybody, to tell her she’s pretty, she’s heard it every single day of her life.” I asked her what she meant and she said people are always telling me I’m pretty.
What I think she’s picking up on is a stream of compliments I’ve received lately because of this whole weight loss thing. It’s relatively dramatic (about fifty pounds) so people who haven’t seen me in a while find it notable. As in, they note it.
My freshman year of college I dabbled in anorexia and bulimia and dropped down to around 108 pounds (I’m around about 5’6″ and weigh about 160 now). When I went home over Thanksgiving and Christmas that year people were insane. They were gushing and ooooooohing and aaaaahing over “how great” I looked. I was starving myself, making myself sick, and got nothing but praise for it. Our society and the obsession with female thinness is seriously fucked up.
Since I’m not starving myself and I’m not unhealthy now I don’t mind the “you look great!” comments. I’m a little annoyed for the sake of humanity that a woman getting thinner draws more compliments than a plumper woman, but remove the socio-political issues from it and I appreciate people are just trying to be kind.
When I notice a friend looks particularly attractive it’s hard for me not to say, “What is different?” Frequently I say it (I tend to say what’s on my mind without much consideration for the consequences) and realize what I’m implying is that they usually don’t look so great. Oops. Commenting on appearances can be so laden in miscommunications it’s easy to avoid them entirely. Then those of us who strive to always value the person inside more than the external qualities end up feeling shallow for what seems such a surface level assessment. I even had a friend hug me the other day wanting to apologize for “making such a big deal” (about my weight) because she didn’t mean to draw attention to it like that. In that case I think she just caught me in one of my many, many foul moods so her compliment may have been met with a blank stare verging on a stink eye.
Of course with The Beauty Myth still alive and well, some lost pounds doesn’t equal contentment, necessarily. I’ve continued my moratorium on mainstream media which I began last year in an effort to stop letting unrealistic and unattainable visions of “beauty” affect my self-esteem. As the reality of divorce set in I began seeing myself differently. Marriage is a comfortable state and one as loving and good as ours provided unconditional acceptance of me just as I was. I didn’t give much thought to my appearance. I’m working hard on returning to a similar state of disregard. It was a pleasant kind of ignorance I felt with no concern about what I should look like or how I should “take care of myself.” I lived with that peacefulness for years so I know it exists. Cutting out mainstream media has helped immensely. I dread grocery store checkout lines these days because that’s where I’m hit with the images and insidious messages I’ve so successfully avoided.
In about fifteen minutes I’ll be having “spa night” with my seven year old, a ritual we started years ago. We’ll soak our feet, massage lotion into our skin, take turns having bubble baths, and we’ll even put a “clay” mask on our faces as something “fancy.” I was struck, though, tonight by how tempted I was to pick up some lotions promising they would “get rid of wrinkles” or “firm sagging skin.” Some of the fat might be gone, but The Beauty Myth lives on. For my daughters sake (when my own sake isn’t enough motivation) I will continue my search for loving myself for what I am, for how I am, not for how I believe I ought to appear. Tonight we will celebrate our bodies and as always, I will follow her lead in self-love. Children are wiser than any of us “grown-ups” when it comes to this stuff. We’ll talk, we’ll laugh, and we’ll feel extra special giving ourselves these treatments. The intersection of feminism, parenting, mothers/daughters, and being female will all come together and it will have nothing at all to do with appearances. It will be beautiful.

edited to add:

Those of you who know me know my older daughter (who will be seven next week!) is very attached. She is brilliant and tender and wise beyond her years. She has empathy at levels most adults can only… well, she’s very, very empathetic. We have struggled over the years with the line between respecting her needs (staying with Mommy has always been her preference) and doing our jobs as parents (making the bigger decisions for her). More than most people, we have eased her in to separations. Sometimes it’s difficult because mainstream wisdom says she’s manipulating us while alternative wisdom says we’re teaching her she’s not capable on her own. Stubbornly, though, we’ve listened to our hearts. We know our daughter. We will make mistakes, of course, but we won’t make choices based on what other people think we should do.

So today when I brought her to horseback riding camp (a place she has visited twice in her life for a few minutes each time) where there were thirteen children (her busiest day at her regular school has 10) she’d never met (she’s known most of her classmates for years) and where the day would be from 9-4:30 (her school day is typically 9:15ish to 3:20ish) you could say I was surprised when she said quickly, “Okay, goodbye!” and literally shoved me toward my car.

I’ll admit I’ve spent the day expecting a call that she’s crying and I should come get her. This happens at school with some regularity, though I don’t go get her (typically) because she calls only moments before the end of the school day. But it’s 3pm, no call. Her sister napped. I got a break. Here are some photos of my big, big girl.
I am proud.

Gender is a social construction. We create gender through our interactions with each other. It’s not that biology plays no role. It’s just that the ways we respond to biology create our socially constructed realities. That said, it’s become more clear to me lately how differently boys and girls are from the earliest ages.

Our six year old daughter began school in September. Until that time almost all of her play had been with girls or with very small groups of boys and girls in very gentle settings. It seems she is by “nature” (as much as a role that plays) a quiet, careful, and sensitive child. She always has been, from the time she burst into tears at my shocked squawk when she bit my nipple. (Her sister, on the other hand, has several times heard the same squawk and just looked at me and laughed!) Now that she’s in school my older daughter has been experiencing a lot more rough-and-tumble play thanks in great part to two boys.

Today I found myself more grateful than ever for my husband. Why? Because he seems to have a clue what to do when she says, “Let’s wrestle!” I haven’t confirmed, but I suspect he’d prefer sitting on the couch reading with her just as I would. But once I get past a playful tickle tustle, I’m flat worn out of the “wrestling” stuff. He really seemed to get it in a way I just couldn’t. The two of them played for several minutes at a time throughout the day, “wrestling.” She’s clearly processing the whole new world of body slams, running smashes, and karate kicks. It makes sense she’d want to get some new skills, new (self-defense!) moves even.
I’m delighted she’s exploring all of it. I’m just more sure than ever I’m not the one she should go to when she wants to learn more about all that “boy stuff.” It’s a language I don’t understand. Thank all things Coparent is here to share with her whatever it is that’s so fun and interesting about bashing into each other.

Boy, oh boy, I’m not a boy.