What's in a name

I thought that while I'm out of town this week and not doing TKD I would spend some time musing on some of the themes that have woven themselves into this blog over the past year. Because, yes, I've been keeping the blog for almost a year now--on January 3 it will be exactly one year.

(I may be out of town and far from my dojang, but I'm visiting a high-tech home where blogging is actually easier than it is at my home!)

Today I've been thinking about the name of this blog, Tae Kwon Do Mom. I guess in a way it's my name, too.

Back when I started TKD, I did so because my children were taking and I was tired of sitting in the back crocheting and watching. I was a Tae Kwon Do Mom in the way that some moms were soccer moms. But I was tired of watching; I wanted to be DOING! I became a different kind of Tae Kwon Do Mom, a Mom who does Tae Kwon Do.

In a way Tae Kwon Do Mom is an odd name because as my children began elementary school, it seemed like my role as a mom changed, maybe even diminished from those days when they were mostly home with me. I didn't think of myself primarily as "a mom" anymore. Sometime before we started Tae Kwon Do, I began thinking of myself as "a writer," or "a professor" just about as often as I thought of myself as "a mom." Still, it's become a comfortable role for me, kind of one step up from "a big sister," a role in which I find myself most comfortable (I've been doing that one for 40-some years, and I believe my momming is modeled somewhat on my big sistering).

Still, I was the TKD mom, lining up with my children in the dojang, working out with them, trying to keep them in line, etc. etc. through that winter and early spring. But then my children lost interest.

I'm not going to go into that issue of my kids losing interest. You can read about it in last March and April's and May's (I think) posts. The thing is, when my kids quit, I was still TKD Mom.

With my kids not there--no one from my family there--my mom role kind of morphed. I was free to be aware of more people at the dojang. I could be The TKD Mom, not just Robbie and Eli's TKD mom. I think kids at the dojang seem to KNOW that I'm a mom, that I'm a free-agent mom. It's actually kind of nice not to have to deal with my own kids so that I can get to know others--the little ones, the middle-sized ones, the teens.

The name also seems to suggest that relationships with others are an important part of TKD to me. I really hadn't expected this at first. I expected to learn a new discipline, a new way of moving. But it seems to me that being part of a family has begun to be an important part of TKD to me. I'm just one of the TKD moms at the dojang, and there are TKD dads, too. Cool thing is that maybe in a way we're all TKD brothers and sisters together, and as I mentioned, that's my favorite role of all.