A Question

In case you're one of the three people in the world who don't read Dooce, let me begin by explaining Dooce is a blog written by Heather Armstrong that is the most popular blog the world has ever known. Pretty much? If you read blogs at all, you have to read Dooce, it is the law. Not only is Heather Armstrong a wonderfully talented writer, she is pretty and she has a pretty husband and a pretty daughter and she will give birth, in a few months, to another pretty person. Heather has two dogs, Coco and Chuck, also pretty. Along with her writing skills, Heather is an awesome photographer. Heather's photographs are SO pretty. But perhaps the most amazing thing of all about Heather is that she and her family subsist largely, and as far as I know, for the most part on the proceeds generated by her very popular blog, a site that garners billions and billions of hits per day, Carl Sagan.

So, Heather is livin' the dream. She makes money by writing about her life. By writing about how she can't poop and how her husband wears crocks and the fact that she used to be a mormon and couldn't drink coffee and what, exactly, she barfed up due to morning sickness over the Christmas holidays.

But it isn't all fun and games for Heather. She suffers from chronic depression that requires medication she'll likely be on for life. When her daughter was six months old, Heather's regular depression combined with post-partum depression became bad enough to land her in an actual mental hospital for a time. The fact that she wrote about that experience in her blog is one of the single bravest acts I've ever witnessed on the internet and also the reason that I'm able to lift my skirt even to the extent that I do.

That's the thing about skirt lifting. In the end, we're all remarkably similar under there. And even when there's a bad problem under your skirt, often-times if you lift it up, you find that you know three people with a condition quite similar to yours...only worse or that they overcame or that they still struggle with or whatever.

Anyway, back to Heather, she's now written a book about her pre and post-partum experiences, "It Sucked and Then I Cried".

Along with all of her zillion internet activities, Heather also participates in something called "Momversations", a project that poses a kid-rearing related question to mommy bloggers, then films their answers and edits them together into a video they publish on a regular basis

And all of this windy, rambling and, as I read it over, completely unnecessary introduction (whew!) is to say that the latest "Momversation" question is one that has me completely flummoxed. And that question is:

Wife or Mother: Which is harder?

My first reaction was, wow, Mother, no question. But then? I thought about it again. And again. And I still don't know. And the more I think about it, the more I don't know. And I am not one who doesn't usually have an immediate opinion about pretty much everything. If you've done both and have an opinion, I'd love for you to comment. If I ever form a definite opinion I'll get back to you (and I know you'll be holding your breath). Meanwhile, you can see what Heather and friends had to say about it: