I have been catching a lot of flak lately from my friends, especially girlfriends, about giving up my status as a Pittsburgh Steelers fan in favor of embracing my husband's hometown team, the Baltimore Ravens. Growing up, we had Steelers pep rallies on Fridays in elementary school, where we wore black & gold and danced to We Are Family by Sister Sledge. It was a great time to be a sports fan in Pittsburgh, when the Steelers seemed to win every Super Bowl and the Pirates, the World Series.
In the most recent few years before I met D, I had become primarily a hockey fan (the Penguins are my team) and watched Steelers games on Sundays mostly because they were a great way to induce a nap-- although I would still actively cheer during a playoff game and I never lost my Terrible Towel. I wasn't enough of a fan, though, to even be aware of the Ravens rivalry until it was too late . . . .
The first football season or two, I playfully maintained my membership in the Steelers Nation, even wearing a Steelers t-shirt to a Scott family event (lucky to have survived that, looking back), and my five-year-old stepdaughter seemed to think it was funny that I and her daddy "argued" about who should win the games. Later, when it became a bit more tense, I tried to soften the situation by seducing him during halftime. Finally, it became too difficult to deal with his rabid Steeler hatred, and my daughter's torn loyalties, and I decided to make a trade: he became a legitimate fan of the Penguins, relinquishing his halfhearted favor of the Washington Capitals, and I became a legitimate fan of the Ravens, acknowledging that I really didn't care nearly as much as he did about football. This agreement was quickly amended by the addition of a corollary: D needed to refrain from attacking Pittsburgh itself as a city, and any of the people in it-- only their choice to be Steelers fans was fair game for smack talking.
It was easy, really. I do love the Ravens, and I proudly and happily wear purple all season long. When the Ravens play the Steelers, I watch the game and just sort of am happy no matter who wins (and also disappointed no matter who wins). It turned out just fine. Until this championship season and the advent of Facebook. All my Steeler homegals (and some new Steeler friends), and even non-Steeler fans who just have rabid sports loyalties of their own - -Palmer -- are all over me about giving up on my identity "just because I got married."
Well, here's what I say to that: "Duh."
In a way. Obviously I didn't give up my identity, that distinguishing thing that is me, that character of mine that doesn't change no matter what situation I'm in. But if being a Steelers fan were part of my identity, I probably wouldn't have dated D for very long. What I really mean by "duh" is that I believe that one's self fundamentally changes when one gets married. Not for better, or for worse (pun intended), but it definitely changes. Being interdependent with someone else, sharing every part of one's life with someone else, being forced, as it were, to take someone else's feelings and needs into consideration no matter how instinctively selfish one might be -- these are all tectonic shifts that fundamentally alter aspects of your personality, I think. Maybe even aspects of your personality that were part of your identity. Perhaps you were a world traveller, an explorer, a lover of wanderlust. Now you're married, with kids. It's become more important to you that the children have stability and financial security, and so you don't spend the money to leave them for 3 weeks and go to Nepal. That's different, but not better, not worse.
Several years ago now, I was at a baby shower for my sister-in-law. Sitting around with the multigenerational group of women, I was the only one "of an age" who had never been married. My sister-in-law's mother piped up with her opinion that a woman could not "call herself an adult until she had been married and become a mother." Whoo! I was mightily offended. I left the room, lest I say something to Doris I would regret. Still, though that remark was very insensitive of her and she absolutely was incorrect, now that I am married and a mother, at least I understand what moved her to say that. She equated the kind of choices wives and mothers often make, sacrificing their own gratification for those of their spouses and children, with adult behavior. She also must have thought that any woman who got married and had babies would make those choices, by default -- if only that were so. I think there is plenty of evidence that plenty of wives and mothers behave like children, no matter what your definition of childish behavior might be.
So what did I really give up when I got married? Some measure of freedom to move independently, certainly -- freedom to spend my money, date whomever, move to another city, take a different job -- do all of those life-altering things that one can't just pick up and do without consulting a spouse. I gave up keeping my own financial books -- good because I no longer spend more than I have, bad because I get to be irresponsible. I gave up Indian food almost entirely, because D hates it. I gave up sleeping diagonally across the bed, sitting in the driver's seat on long car trips, and carrying suitcases. And all this just from being married -- not to mention being a mom. Were any of these things part of my identity, though?
There are days when, telecommuting to work like I do, and therefore sitting at home with the baby and our au pair in the next room, I feel like a SAHM (the chat-room acronym for Stay At Home Mom), and in some ways I am. I understand why they have support groups about the feminist politics of being a SAHM, and I understand why they/we have mommy playgroups like my Tuesday Mothers of Preschoolers group -- both of these undertakings are about identity. But I don't feel the need to assert my independence or reclaim any of the things I "gave up" in order to be a fully realized person with individuality and a connection to that old, single Anne. I am a person in a pair, now, mated for life. I'm a different animal. But I'm still me.
Except -- I am reclaiming the Steelers for one day this Sunday. My boys Ben and Troy are going to kick some serious *ss!
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