Today dawned with yet another rejection of my writing, this time by British publishing house Mills & Boon. I entered their "New Voices" writing contest last month. They chose 21 pieces out of 1090 entries and I'm not one of them.
I probably should have known I wasn't going to make it...my entry only had 21 comments on it and a reader rating of 56%. Still, I worked really hard and was hoping my writing would turn some heads. Of course it didn't. Why did I let myself think that it could?
You know why? Because 16 years of school told me I was talented. Award-winning, speech-making, newspaper-article talented. But the second I graduated from college I started to fail.
Sixty job rejections my first year in the "real world." All sorts of writing...magazine pieces, children's books, news stories and romance novels...rejected. Marketing proposals, advertising pitches, radio spots...rejected, rejected, rejected. And I haven't even started to count the number of times my broadcast news resume (my tape) went unnoticed.
So here I am: pregnant, unemployed and continually shunned from working society. And all I can think about is spending the rest of my life raising kids, making dinner and doing laundry. I hate myself for being depressed at that idea, as keeping a home is something to be proud of, but I always imagined something more for myself. Is that because of some societal brainwashing? If this was 1949 would I revel in housework and caring for my husband and children? And since it's 2011, I've been raised to think myself a failure if I can't have a career and a family at the same time.
I came across an article today about a "mommy's salary" proposal in South Africa. Basically a successful female businesswoman wants stay-at-home moms to get 10% of their husband's salary in order to translate how important raising kids is (because the only way human beings appreciate anything is if it makes money).
So I guess I'm not totally crazy at imagining 18 years of thankless sacrifice as a mother minus a career. But it's not like I can share that with anyone but the four people who read this blog. Because you know what happens when you say that to stay-at-home moms? They rip your head off. Do you know what happens when you say that to career women? They pat you on the head and look at you with insufferable pity.
Ghastly.
