A blog post a day
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
I haven’t done nearly enough writing in the past couple years, so I’m going to try and jumpstart my creative juices by blogging a little bit every day here.
Don’t get too excited yet… Most of it will probably be inane ramblings about poopy diapers and reality TV, but hopefully this will get me back into the habit of writing more regularly. Oh and beware… my potty mouth will be running wild here. Apologies in advance for any unlady-like language.
So a lot of people have been asking me if I feel different now that I’m a parent, and I usually say no. In my head I’m still a sulky teenager, not a grown-up. It’s weird to think I’m someone’s mom. But I’m starting to realize that there are a lot of little changes. For example…
Summer is here, and in NYC, that means hollering season (”yo shaw-TAY!”) is in full effect. I’m usually barely aware of the catcalling, since I always blast music on my earphones to drown out all stuff like that, but the other day I was iPod-less and caught a “Konichiwa!” as I walked by this dude.
Now in pre-Sean days, my first thought would have been, “Ugh I’m not Japanese, you stupid ignorant motherfucker.”
But now that Sean’s here, my first thought was “Ew! I’m someone’s mom. You can’t holler at me! That’s so gross.”
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
Sara no h. Said,
July 15, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
Haha! I totally understand where you’re coming from – it’s amazing how quickly my perspective shifted toward “I’m the MOM, what NOW??” approach, and everything is filtered through that before it hits my race/gender/etc. filters. Thankfully, however, I’ve never been hollered at. I’m not sure how I’d respond, except possibly to stare dumbly at the hollerer until the moment to say something witty has passed.
It’s especially interesting to me to watch people interact with us as a family – I’m Pinay and my husband is Caucasian, but since my son looks so much like me we think that people assume that my hubby’s not the dad. It’s just a vibe we get. Or maybe I’m just paranoid. But it’s interesting all the same.