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The Case For Mom-Lore
- Kimberly Charest
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
On our once-a-month-ish catch-up call, my friend from middle school and I spoke of life and its uncanny proclivities. From job statuses to mascara reviews, we took over an hour to share the hard-hitting news of our effervescent, post-graduate lives. We’re living the dream post-grad life, working towards long-term personal and professional goals, and excited for the coming years. Yet, we also share a slight dissatisfaction with where we are in life. Cultural norms and anti-norms dictate strong preferences for the lives of young women. We are instructed to either settle down, start our families, or exploit every fiber of our potential in the name of professionalism. We’re quoted stats on fertility rates decreasing, and career opportunities dwindling after turning thirty.
There’s pressure.
Every day we wake up thinking: What kind of woman should I become?
To answer this question, I ventured where most young women seek life’s most critical answers, TikTok.
Scrolling through female-centered content online, I discovered videos that can be categorized into two main perspectives: corporate girl core and trad-wife influencer. Corporate girl content features office outfits, client meetings, and useful tips for surviving a male-dominated field. Women in this category encourage young girls to live according to a standard set for men. Trad-wife content features stay-at-home moms or wives filming themselves in a milkmaid dress picking homegrown vegetables, cooking meals from scratch, and posting useful tips for raising toddlers. These videos, posted from the perfect angle with structured lighting, showcases the effort made to create the content and narrative they share for likes and brand deals. What’s more, these two lifestyles war with each other online. The cultural norm and anti-norm debates grow rapidly divisive, schismatic, and condescending towards one another.
When twenty-two year old recent college grads consume this content consistently, they grow confused and polarized as to which lifestyle actually serves women. For us, this isn’t a little TikTok debate or point of interest on a talk show. This is our actual life and we think about it constantly.
My friend and I desire to be devoted wives and good mothers. We want a strong, stable, family unit, but what do we do when Prince Charming takes a detour or we begin to appreciate the young professionals we are becoming? This causes us to question our purposes, and wonder how we can have both, if we can have both at all.
Everyone tells us we have nothing to worry about, that life carries its peculiar ways of figuring it out for us. Yet, the yearning to be married and be mothers doesn’t cease. The pressure to make something of our lives, build a professional portfolio, and use all our potential before we turn thirty races through our mind every second of the day.
What’s a girl to do? Become a self-sufficient, powerful girl boss or lock herself in a tower waiting for Prince Charming to rescue her from the snares of corporate America?
If TikTok or internet personalities won’t help me answer these questions, maybe speaking to real women whom I admire in my life will. For me, these women are my mom and my boss.
My mom was a stay-at-home mom and wife for nearly twenty years. She dedicated her life to God, her children, and her husband. She dropped out of a pre-med degree to marry my father and hasn’t worked on her professional career since. In a world of girl bosses and career-chasers, my mom lived the trad-wife lifestyle before Pinterest made it trendy. She diligently homeschooled my sister and me, took pride in a clean, peaceful house, and literally ground the grain used in her homemade bread. Thanks to Mom, I am willing, prepared, and excited to be a wife and mother. I’m not afraid of the stay-at-home life and value it deeply.
However, I also understand it's not at all what’s posted on the internet. It’s not a perfectly positioned camera with ideal lighting, a spotless house, and matching outfits for your kids. It’s difficult. It’s messy. It’s a constant cycle of self-sacrifice. It’s the hardest thing a woman can do. It tests the limits of your capacity to be kind, understanding, loving, and compassionate. Not every woman can do it well, I think.
My boss, on the other hand, has done both. In the early years of her career, she joined the military and rose to the rank of captain in the Air Force, serving as military police at both the Pentagon and Andrews Air Force Base. While enlisted, she completed two tours in Operation Enduring Freedom–one to an undisclosed location– and continued her service as an officer following the 9/11 attacks. Following 10 years of service, she gave it all up to become a stay-at-home mom soon after having her children. However, after several years serving her family, she jumped back into work while her kids were teenagers to lead a nonprofit ministry dedicated to the personal and professional development of girls and young ladies.
I see firsthand the way she pushes herself to be the leader her team needs. I watch her calm, compassionate response to crises, and the efficient yet edifying contribution she makes towards every person she encounters. She is the epitome of soft-spoken, diligent, leadership. Not every woman can be her, I think.
When I think about these women, I don’t think about what they do. I think about who they are and how they’ve adapted to these different roles in their life. I think about how they’re gracefully resilient through all obstacles.
I think about how they’ve grown into the woman I admire.
The point being, a woman’s role in life changes over time. It’s supposed to. That’s the beauty of being a woman. We are adaptable to the needs of our families, our goals, and the seasons of life we live.
I’ll end with the conclusion my friend and I came to on our phone call, “In most of life, if you want to make something happen, you can do it. Want to lose weight? Count your calories. Don’t like how pale you are? Self-tan. Want to move somewhere? Go! Start a new life. But there’s nothing you can do to make your husband appear. That’s why nothing anyone ever says about it makes you feel better. I don’t want to look back at the years of my life without a husband saying I was ‘just waiting’ when I could’ve been doing something really worthwhile or cool.”
I am beyond excited to meet my husband whenever it’s time for him to arrive. I’m also applying to law schools, writing constantly, learning the electric guitar, enrolling in Toastmasters, and pursuing every aspect of my interests because I’m out here creating the most epic mom-lore for my future kids.
I may be waiting for Prince Charming, but life isn’t. So, I’m going to live it. I’m pursuing excellence. I’m testing my limits. I want an adventure. I want the obstacles. I want the mom-lore.
I am only ever supposed to be the woman I am becoming, and she’s going to change throughout her life. She’s going to change with work, in her career, in talents, as a bride, in motherhood, and in old age. And, I just can’t wait to meet her either.
