Who's Afraid of Of A Little Bedbug?

This seems to be a bit of a carry-over of theme from the last post: talking is a different thing from doing. The same theme comes up in sermons in churches on Sunday mornings and in scripture itself; it comes up in feminist discussions and writings. In science, a theory is only a hypothesis until it is tested and proven.  We seem to not  always have the same standards in other disciplines....

Living is messy business.  If you're in the pit, you're going to fight and subsequently see, taste, hear, smell, and feel blood; you might even bleed.  Theorizing is sanitized.  Even planning is clean. 

You've heard about Hopeprint 2 posts ago.  I received a communication today from the director that mentioned bedbugs...

You must understand that bedbugs are on my "Top Ten Most Dreaded Non-Lethal Things" list. They almost made the "Top Ten Most Dreaded Things EVER" list, but putting them in the same company as anthrax and ebola seemed melodramatic.  Realistically they probably fit in better with pigeons.  Trust me when I say we should leave that alone.

Anyway, in previous work I did there was high chance of me picking up bedbugs and I took elaborate precautions.  Not only are bedbugs just icky, they are IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of.  Dreadful things usually are ridiculously hardy.  Like, can-live-10-years-on-a-hard-surface-hardy.  Or, hustling-humans-out-of- their-hamburgers-hardy... wait, I said I would leave that alone!

I like to think I have been a safe distance from bedbugs lately. I make my husband help me check for bedbugs every time we enter a hotel. I mean, I'm the one who when the note from the school nurse comes home saying a child in the school has a case of head lice (not nearly as hardy as bedbugs and 10 times easier to get rid of) immediately throws everything my children had on them in sealed plastic bags and check their hair three times a day for the next 4 weeks. This communication I received almost made me pick up the phone and tell Cathy and Nicole and everyone "So sorry -  I forgot I'm busy every Tuesday night for the rest of the year."

And then I felt a Divine whisper: "Hypocrite."

Locking ourselves in, sealing ourselves away is not living.  Living is not safe.  Living in a way that seeks justice for all is most definitely NOT SAFE. But as a child, I was sometimes guilty of hiding really near home base so the distance to safety would be short. As a teenager, I was sometimes guilty of not trying out for something for fear of failure.  As a mom, I am sometimes guilty of making the decision that keeps my daughters out of harm's way instead of the one that will provide an opportunity for growth.  I fight the urge to stay safe more often than I would like to admit, even this many years and lessons into life. 

I deeply believe that being involved in the mission of Hopeprint is a natural extension of my values and beliefs and is something I need to be involved in. People needing hope and love is bigger than sanitation: pretty Un-American and Un-the-family-I-was-reared-in and honestly, Un-me.  I like sanitation.  But if we all gave into our fears all of the time, evils of all kind would prevail.

Who's afraid of a little bedbug?

Me. Totally.

But I'm going anyway.

From Where I Sit

There has been a lot of down time at my place of work lately.  I have been trying to use the opportunity to brush up on reading some of the writings in my field.  I came across a report prepared for a 2011 Anti-Poverty Programs conference held in Berlin.  The author was Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution.  He seems to be a very knowledgable conservative in an important and often predominantly liberal conversation. "Fighting Poverty the American Way," was its title.  What a great title set in an intriguing frame.

Research galore to back up his opinions and very sound arguing; essentially the conclusion was that policies handicap American programs that try to do away with poverty and need to be revamped.  The forces identified in this report that keep poverty alive and well are low wages, family dissolution, mediocre education, and immigration of poorly educated workers.  You would think 2 of those would come out of a conservative's mouth, one from a liberal's, and one from both (everyone has an opinion on education in America, and usually it's that it could be better...) So I found the article to have a tone I could consider seriously.

I am not a world-class researcher.  I am not nearly as smart as the author and the others at his table. I do not have the background and the experience they do. My own actual position twists and turns so much that a real solution would be hard to come by.  The following are only musings deriving from observations made from where I sit.

Half of all children living in female-headed households live in poverty.  When a child lives in a household with only a mother, they are four times as likely to be poor. Those are facts. There was another statement made that I was not as comfortable backing since I didn't see the hard numbers: that children in female-headed families are more likely to be arrested, become pregnant as teens, have mental health problems, commit suicide, and become divorced when they grow up. 

All of the single mothers (well, I could argue all mothers in general, but that's a different tangent) I know personally live with elephant-size guilt.  Some fully acknowledge it, others try to stuff it under a lot of bravado and it rears its head only in the most vulnerable of moments.  I don't think these statistics do much to encourage these women.  I don't know that keeping the men in their lives would have helped their situation.  I don't know what to do with these statistics. 

The feminist angel -or devil - has a lot to say; men are absolved from a lot of the responsibility of child rearing, men have more earning power and better social standing, etc.  The Christian angel - or devil - says families are supposed to be two-parent headed. If I think through what Jesus would actually have to say I can't help but conjure up images of him writing in the sand in the midst of a mob with stones in their hands. 

We can say a lot, and take a conversation in several different directions.  But what to do - well, the United States of America hasn't figured that out either.  No country has.

I spend a fair amount of time intellectually hanging out on the macro level, planning programs and beyond. At the end of days when I have time to reflect, it is the time I spend hanging out on the individual level that the most gets done, for better or worse.  It's one thing to read numbers and another thing entirely to look into the eyes of someone those numbers represent. At some point we hope the planning and work on the ground inform one another and make headway. 

Hope

There is a house in the heart of the Northside of Syracuse that is inhabited by young women fully committed to amazing work.  The neighborhood, by some, is considered dangerous.  Most would deem it not desirable, anyway.  They live there because that's where the people they've decided to work with live.  The have made it homey and lovely and throw open its doors to everyone who is a refugee or volunteers to have meaningful connections to refugees.  These are not social rejects.  These are hip, smart, cute young women who are doing incredible things.

I squandered my youth and singleness.

But my daughter will not.  Her and her former teen missions teammates have been pleading with Cathy and I to start up the group again.  Most of us do not go to the same church anymore, so we weren't sure how we could pull that off.  In that mysterious magnetic pull that happens when things are supposed to come together, I kept rubbing shoulders with Nicole, the founder and director of Hopeprint, the ministry house described above.  Cathy and I finally figured out that Hopeprint was the perfect fit for the girls and a perfect way to get the group working together again. There was a need working with the kids, and the girls love to work with kids.

Tonight was orientation, and the girls met many of the young women leading things there.  All of them were very kind to the girls, and their enthusiasm hooked up with that of the girls and took off.  Now the girls not only want to run the class for the littlest refugee children, they also want to meet girls their age and be friends.

I feel so fortunate for my daughter to have the opportunity to form relationships with people from all over the world - to minister to them and learn from them. She has a bevvy of new role models. This is one of those times I shake my head in awe at a windfall I have received.
I have been noticing a trend - in Upstate New York, anyway.  Young single women are taking up the reins of real, grinding, amazing work.  Last year, on a teen girls mission trip, the girls met Rev. Sarah, a young United Methodist minister who was leading the charge of helping flood victims pick up the pieces.  On another adventure, they met Rev. Becky, another young United Methodist minister who has taken over a dead, vacant church and is trying to minister to poor and broken people in the neighborhood around her. Our girls are poised to do the same.  My daughter and her friend, on the drive home, were conversing about how cool Hopeprint is. "Maybe we could do that when we're out of college - maybe we could live in a house like that!"

Three cheers for the young ladies of Hopeprint and others like them, not only casting hope for refugees and others in the Northside, but also casting vision for young girls from the suburbs. 

Reader, Forgive Me

"Father, forgive me for I have sinned" is the way I remember starting a Catholic confessional. 

Are you disappointed that I did not kick of the New Year with a resolution post?

I know you're not.  You are totally licking your lips in anticipation of morsels of guilt confessed.

Ok, so I had no big scandals involving adultery or gambling or plastic surgery or such.

This is more of taking a deep breath and admitting something out loud.

So I am a career woman now.  Real deal.  Swallowed the whole gig hook, line, and sinker. 

That's not the confession part.  The confession part is that I miss being at home.

I do.  I miss letting my kids be kids.  I miss having things organized. (Though we all know that is such a relative term, organized). I miss cooking real dinners most nights.  I miss having free time without having to borrow from my already shortened sleep.

I don't want to stop working.  I like it.  It's been good for me.  It's been good for my family.  I just don't want to work so much. Or maybe I just want to be better at balancing.

Whenever my family moves, I feel as if it takes 2 years to really feel at home there.  Maybe after 2 years of working full time I will feel at home in my career mom skin.  I'm the better part of a year shy.  I do want to find more balance.  In retrospect, the happiest period of recent times has been when I was working part time. Can I find balance in an unbalanced schedule?

I responded to a comment made the other day by a reader on an older post ("Everybody Needs a Housewife, Including Me") that I have recently been intrigued by the idea that "taking care of" is an art. It is something learned with care, just as people learn to be engineers or accountants.  What I mean to say is that I feel the need to recapture the honor of being able to take care of my home and my children and *gasp* my husband and even myself.

I have no idea how I will do this.  I am not even really asking for suggestions as I suspect this is something I have to feel my way through. 

This blog, at its heart, has always been about figuring out who we are best meant to be.  I am quite certain I am not meant to be who I was entirely last year.  In some ways, absolutely positively YES I was made for what I was doing.  But there was much left unattended to.

This blog became a little scattered and self-centered last year and the reason is because I was. 

Phew, I am done confessing now. C'est le vie. Let's see what happens this year.  

Not My Will for One Week

If feminism means doing it all, that is a really sucky deal.

I don't think it does, even though if you look at my life, you would swear I do.  Things look pretty good from the outside.  But inside things are melting down fast.  I attempted to tell Jeff about it this weekend.  That's a really nice way of framing what happened.  The result was that Jeff asked if he could take the laundry chores from me, I said no, and he proceeded to throw things with zippers in a load with delicates without telling me.  "They were all colors," he said.

So that didn't go too well. He did agree to stay away from the laundry.

We tried to figure out what he could do to lighten my load.  What I tried to tell him is that I want to be the boss of the house and he can just do what I ask.  He kept pretending like he didn't hear me and over and over said, "What can I take over?" What is it with men wanting to take over stuff? Well, I don't want him to take over anything that I have been handling.  Finally, I got tired of arguing and said that he was in charge of homework and school papers.  I would no longer be checking backpacks.  I would no longer be running around looking for kids' permission slips the morning they are due.  But then my heart seized up a little and I begged him to keep me in the loop like I do for him. I can't pry my fingers off of home duties that I have convinced myself are my sole responsibility, but I'm going to kill myself and alienate my family if I don't cede more ground.

Work is worse.  My program is facing real trouble. I am secretly fearful that its not helping our participants. 
And I have been spending lots of energy and time working out models and researching and making presentations.  I get asked to trouble shoot, get none of the credit , and the real power lies to make the decisions of consequence lie above my pay grade.

Last week, we had a speaker come in and talk to our participants about stress relief.  The lady was kind of new-agey and into wheatgrass and chakras and stuff that can be easy for me write off.  She had us doing these relaxation exercises and I admit that I do like relaxation exercises.  She gave us this sheet of stress-relief techniques that made my heart kind of twinge in the way that makes me wonder if God might be trying to get through to me. Nah. I am not superstitious.  I must be practical and clear-eyed.

We broke up with our church awhile ago. Yeah, that's one of those ugly little things about Christianity - we can't coexist in one big church.  Anyway, we have been visiting other churches.  There is one that Molly really likes - and if I had to choose today I would pick that one as well.  The pastor has been going over "incredible moments of Jesus' life," and it is the kind of series that makes me say, "Yep - that's why I stick with this. Because of him (Jesus)." Molly and I were discussing the most recent message, which was about how Jesus' last act of freewill as a human being was to bring healing to an enemy who didn't deserve it, and to tell the disciples - "No - stop trying to bring my kingdom your way (mad acts of violence)!" The pastor challenged us to check a box on this card in the seats that said "This week I will pray 'Your will be done, not mine.'" I partly checked it as a test - if anybody calls me, strike for that church.  But I have a meeting tomorrow at work that it will be very beneficial for me, after all of the plotting and politicking and planning I've done to sit back and do breathing exercises and say, "Not my will, but yours." I partly checked it because of this stuff that I have been handling in my own strength with my own brainpower.  Being smart enough and strong enough only goes so far and then its just exhausting and empty.  If that argument can even be made; the view from the other side is that I've just made things worse.

Anyway, Molly said she always wonders what that means - letting God's will be done.  Does that mean we sit back and let things happen and don't make plans or do anything?

Great question, kiddo. Teenagers can ask the best questions sometimes.

I said I didn't think so - I think it means we don't work ourselves into knots after we make our plans.  You do your best, and then at some point you let it go.

And then I think God said something like "So why did you presume that I don't speak though the new-age lady, Miss Smartypants?" Or maybe that's what God would have said if he were speaking through me, which thank Him, He probably doesn't do all that much.

My will gets me only so far and then it trips me up.  I haven't figured out where the line is where helpful switches to hurtful. I let go and then I lunge forward and grab.I want to release but I am afraid to.

Breathe in, breathe out, not my will but yours be done. I'm trying it for one week (let's pretend I've not failed repeatedly today). It has to be better than what I've been doing.

Everyone Needs a Housewife, Including Me

My oldest daughter checked a vegan cookbook out at the library, and as we sat looking at recipes I had this "well, we could try that" mentality.  Until I started calculating the time it would take to boil water and pour it over cashews, let them sit for hours, then drain off the liquid and add lemon juice, etc.  to make "cheese." To make one ingredient.  That's not even an actual step in the recipe.  Taking care of kids and feeding them is really hard work, even when they are not trying to be healthy vegans who run off 500 calories a day. And when they are infants - good grief! Every nursing mother should get a year off from every other responsibility in her life. Isn't that in Leviticus or something?

I want to go on record saying that I agree with the stance that housework and kidwork is undervalued in our society.  And also the stance that the previous statement is so because it always has been considered "women's work."

My husband is sort of fascinated by the Mormon faith.  He finds it interesting and reads up on it.  When I am feeling thoroughly rotten I joke that he just wants to look into getting another wife.  You know, younger, cuter, not rotten like me. 

Then I got to thinking.  I  want another wife in the house. (Ok, I fully acknowledge that most Mormons do not believe in polygamy).  Someone to help cook, clean, run errands, get the kids to where they need to be, make sure everything is running smoothly in the household, keeping track of doctor and vet appointments and making lunches.  Filling in on the nights I am too tired.  Of course, maybe I wouldn't be too tired if she were around to assist me with my house/kids workload.  And I would have time to get my hair cut and colored and all those other things women do to feel attractive. 

Stuff needs to get done. Either you pay someone to do it, or you do it yourself.  But our economy is such that it is very, very hard for most people to give up an income to take care of things at home.  And our economy is such that those women who are paid to clean people's houses and watch people's kids can't afford to have anyone do that for them.  And if they were paid enough to make a real living, we couldn't afford them. 

Men don't usually do full time kidwork and housework. They usually aren't maids and they usually aren't nannies. It's "unmasculine" and oh, look - we just found ourselves in the deep water of  societal expectations on men concerning masculinity. All I know is that when men iron or clean bathrooms they are sainted.  When women do it, no one notices that it even got done.  Probably because it was 2 am when those things happened and so everyone thought elves did it.  When I help throw that stinking heavy canoe on top of the car, no one saints me.  If I chop down the rogue branches in the yard and haul them out to the curb, I do not get any extra recognition.  I get, "So what are we having for dinner?" I do feel for men, being under so much pressure to be macho and tough and I'm not arguing that they have their own set of societal fallout to deal with.  I am also too fried to see my argument through to its conclusion. So I am just going to surrender my feminism and Christianity and say that housewives are a great idea - I want one too.

Mommy Guilt Does Not Discriminate

Summer is supposed to be relaxing.  Lazy.  At least a little less busy.

Ha.

I promise to not try to one-up you with what I pack into the hours between 5 am and 11 pm.  What I am going to tell you is that mommy guilt stalks the stay at home mom and the career mom.  I know because I have been both.

I used to feel guilty that I wasn't enjoying my children enough over the length of their entire summer break.  I used to worry that I hadn't provided them enough enrichment.  I fretted that I had not been patient enough, creative enough, fun enough, sweet enough.

Now I hate that I haven't been around enough.

To my credit, and I do need to give myself a little, I have let the house and yard go a bit in effort to make the most of lovely summer evenings and weekends with them.  To their credit, and they deserve a lot, they have bounced from camp to camp like troopers.  My high school cross country runner goes to a full day of camp, at 2 of which she would practice violin or dancing/singing/acting from 9 to 5, and then be whisked away to barely make it to cross country practice at 6, minus a real dinner.

We've had some great times.  But on the flip side of "Mom, I am so bored" is "Mom - can we just all stay home and do nothing today?" I can't remember the last time I did nothing.  Literally.  I can't remember the last time I was bored.  I don't think the kids can either.  Which sounded like heaven when I stayed at home with them.  But I'm exhausted.  And I'm worried that the kids haven't rested enough before the onslaught of school begins.  Especially my freshman.

I have been getting e-mails from the cross country parent group - the"tailgaters."  I totally understand if you just threw up in your mouth a little.  I do every time I see those e-mails.  They invited me to an event on a Monday at 11 am where families will be grilling for the runners and having a picnic after their mandatory practice - look and see what items are still needed and sign up! And to a brunch after practice on a Friday at 10 am.  I fumed to my husband, "Who do they expect can make these events! I don't even know how I'm going to get her to those mandatory morning practices let alone join in the party!" He looked at me and said "You could've last year." And I cursed him in my head and wondered if he remembers everything I have sacrificed for his career over the years.

This would be Mommy Guilt, the Career Mom version.

I think I would be fine if I had 6 weeks vacation. But I don't.  I have to decide whether or not I will spend my precious 3 weeks vacation on real vacation with family and friends or *gasp* just the four of us going somewhere for fun! God forbid! Or, if I will spend it making sure my kids get to where they need to go and aren't alone, etc.  And that we see family and friends who live far away.  I can't just take one day off to spend a lazy day with my children this summer.  Guilty. If I do, I can't come home for Christmas. Guilty.  If I do, I can't go on vacation with Jeff's family. Guilty.  Or with our friends. Guilty.  If I take a day off during winter break, that's one less day on summer break.  Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

Then again, thank God that I can afford after school child care for my little one.  Thank God that I can afford to send them to summer camps where I know they are being enriched.  Thank God that I have a job that while demanding, is exciting and fulfilling (well, the good parts are, most of the time).  Thank God I have a husband who can share in some of the transporting.  Thank God that we are all healthy.  Thank God that I have any vacation at all.  And if I really think about it, thank God that my children don't have to work. They are downright spoiled, those kids of mine! And so am I! (It goes without saying that my husband totally is - right?)

And now I'm feeling guilty that I have it so good.

Whatever your situation, Mama, I know you feel guilty sometimes.  We can't be perfect.  We just can't. I don't know that we will ever learn how to get over that.  Does it help to know that I know you're doing your best?  I may not have time to call you or facebook you, but I honor your effort.  Stay at home mom - I know how tough it is to do that.  Working mom, it's tough too, in an entirely different way.  Neither gets enough appreciation, recognition, or space to be human. I suspect that whatever it takes to slay Mommy Guilt once and for all, it will take all of us working together, resisting the urge to believe one of us has it harder than the rest.

But first I am going to envy you a little if you get to sleep in tomorrow;)