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;)

A Sort of Freedom

I was driving on the Northside, where it is always fun to people watch.  People from all over the world live on the Northside, alongside many whose families have been there forever.  It's such an interesting part of town.  An Italian deli that's been there forever might be next to a new Somali market.  Tattoo parlors are housed in buildings that look like a drugstore with a soda fountain should be in them instead.

And then I saw her.  A little old lady who in certain ways, did not look like an old lady at all.  Though she kind of hobbled, she still had that 1940's movie star sashay.  She was dressed in a perfectly pristine dress that was the height of fashion in the 1940's (well, judging by what Ingrid Bergman wore in Casablanca).  She had a scarf tied around her head to match her dress, just like Ingrid Bergman.  She had on big sunglasses and pumps that matched her handbag.  And she was smiling up into the sun as she sashayed/hobbled down the street, as if she were just so glad to be out on such a beautiful day. She totally pulled it off. I wanted to pull over and ask her to go grab a cup of coffee and with me and tell me about her life.

Do you ever wonder what you'll be like when you're that age? We don't like to think about being old.  It seems scary to acquire more wrinkles and sagging and less agility and mental capacity.  We fight to stay young.  We chase trends and dye our hair. There is a sort of freedom that comes in getting older, though, I suspect.  A permission to not diet or worry about cellulite.   A release from keeping up.  I'm starting to feel it.  And I like the deeper sense of who I am that is taking the place of worrying about stuff I spent way too much time worrying about when I was younger.

When I am that lady's age, I want to sashay down the street dressed up in the clothes that still make me feel good.  I have always wished I could pull of 1940's clothes because I think they are somehow still very chic.  But I can't now so I probably won't in my 70's. I hope I'm not trying to look like a teenager.  I also don't want to adopt the standard old lady wardrobe.  I wonder what I'll wear?  A bandana and t-shirt and cut-offs and canvas sneakers? Khakis and a button down collar shirt and loafers? (I am positive that's what my husband would be wearing: it's what he's been wearing since 1999.  But I would wear a cute little bright colored sweater around my shoulders too). A flowered tunic dress and sandals and a big floppy hat?

 I hope I'm smiling up at the sun, happy to be alive and about on such a beautiful day.

Blind Enough to See

 Some of the most rewarding things that have happened in my life have been the craziest - the ones I thought I might not make it through, or didn't want to do in the first place, or had others questioning my ability to make grown-up decisions.  This is the pep talk I'm giving myself this Sunday evening leading into yet another week at work I can't quite figure out how I will get through, but somehow will.  Truly though, it's that crazy stuff, not the house, the car, the degree, that had any success satisfying real soul thirst.

The project I am doing now has parts of it that make me want to mouth off or walk away.  But I also get this amazing privilege of hearing people's stories and their hopes of what their lives could be.  A husband dying in a refugee camp, the widow bravely starting life in a new country with 6 children alone. A young man's dreams of being a doctor thwarted by war and famine, but finding hope again of pursuing a medical career. If these people get good jobs and are able to finally find security, I can think of few things less wonderful to have been a part of.

Recently my children have been talking to me nonstop about fostering or adopting another child/children. They have been asking me what happens to kids who don't have families, who don't get adopted. They are especially interested in the plight of unaccompanied minor refugees, and with breathtaking honesty and purity, they explain that even if we are from a different culture, our family would be a nice place for a kid who doesn't have one.  "We could do it, Mom!" In my practical adult mind the math of us becoming a foster family doesn't add up.  But when I stuff down my adultness and come to the situation as a child, the same incredulous, "Why are we not doing this?!" is what I think too.

I told my husband about the kids' campaign, half expecting a long, back and forth conversation about pros and cons ending with "Let's think about this." Instead he responded with, "Why have we not started this process yet?"  I started to articulate a pros and cons list and was promptly silenced with  "Call your contact this week." The cons he began to pick off, like a sharpshooter, one by one.  

There's this song we sing at church that snotty me thinks is outdated and tired: "Open the eyes of my heart." The music starts and I inwardly groan and try to think up a new harmony to sing along with so it doesn't feel like torture.  My first grader, however, stands on her chair and sings it with all of her heart at the top of her lungs.  For the record, my first grader is the one with the open eyes and heart and can see God in things like bringing children who need families into ours.  The chances of me ever liking that song again perished sometime back in 2004, but I keep trying to think up new ways to express the prayer embedded in that irritating tune.  Like a mantra, I keep repeating its essence over and over as I prepare for the week: let me see clearly enough to make good decisions, but blind enough to trust the hand that guides me. Tough enough to shoulder what I need to carry, but soft enough to still be re-molded.  

Not so Great Expectations

Mother daughter relationships aren't always as wonderful as Hallmark cards make them seem.  Nor are they often as bad as made out to be on TV dramas.  No matter what the reading of the stage of relationship with my mother happens to be at any given moment, I realize that I am blessed to have a relationship with my mother.

Today is my mom's birthday.  My mom has lived most of her life being a mother.  For some reason, that fact impressed me when I thought about it.  It's not like she stopped being a mom when I turned 18. Or 21.  Or when my baby sister turned 21.

Of course I remember lots of her bad mom moments. But I've forgotten some of the good ones.  Not the big good ones like when she came and cleaned my house every two weeks when I was on bedrest when expecting my youngest daughter. Incidentally, many forgotten good moments occurred during my teenage years I was not even aware at the time were good mom moments.  

I have a teenage daughter.  I am not patient about her decision making process during shopping, the way my mom was.  I find that swimsuit shopping for my daughter is almost as bad as swimsuit shopping for myself.  Not for the same reasons.  She is absolutely adorable and looks cute in anything.  She is the world's slowest decision maker, however.  And almost too tiny for adult sizes and slightly too big for kid sizes.  And not allowed to wear super skimpy bikinis.

Moms do not get appreciated for sitting through hours of swimsuit shopping with teenager daughters when they could be making dinner or gardening or at least shopping for themselves.  Nor do they get appreciated for spending 60 bucks on the only swimsuit within a 50 mile radius that both mother and daughter agreed upon.  They are actually expected to do this, I realize now. Just as I am finding out moms are expected to make stains vanish from favorite shirts, fix scheduling glitches, and reveal the secrets of Algebra.

I always had clean jeans in my drawers, but always having clean clothes was another expectation, not revered as a small miracle. I expected that there would be food in the pantry when I came home hungry from school.  I expected her to respond in a sweet, motherly way even when I took things out on her. I expected her to drop everything and listen to me when I wanted to talk and to not even ask how things were when I was in a bad mood and didn't want to talk.  And she was expected to know when I wanted which.

 The time is not that far away when I will have been a mother for more of my life than not.  Moms don't stop being moms; they are expected to adapt to the ever-evolving expectations of their children.

The older my oldest child gets, the less I analyze the decisions my mother made and just appreciate that she cared enough to be there and make them. I used to say my mom was a great mom of babies and small children.  And she was.  But of course, I was an idiot and had yet to learn that there are a million more parenting decisions to make when one has teenagers, and therefore a million more opportunities to make mistakes. I should have said she was a good mom. Period.  But I was still editing the script of my teenage years.  When my mom was figuring out what the heck to do with a hormonal teenager, and the next one right behind her in line, as well as still pay sufficient attention to the kindergartner.  She was adjusting to living in a new state away from everything she knew - a woman who hates change and loves security.  She was trying to bring up her family on half the salary her husband used to make.

I appreciate my mom.

The Wisdom To Know the Difference

Ok, I am calling "Uncle!" But wait - I'm the one who twisted my own arm!  So I'm stuck. At least until this phase of the pilot program is over.  In an effort to release some of the pressure building to unbearable levels inside me, I posted on Facebook that I have about 2 weeks left of being sane.  Just in case any of you had anything you really needed me to say or do before then.  One wonderful lady joked, "Oh, there's an expiration on that too?"

My dear friend Ami remarked, "Nope, we're here to keep renewing."

In the pea soup fog of the moment, I often forget that renewal feels an awful lot like losing sanity sometimes.

The wisdom lies not only is knowing the difference, but also in knowing how to keep perspective while it is happening, and acting accordingly.  Does acting insane cancel out the progress that happens in renewal? *Sigh*

Lately, I have questioned my sanity for stepping into the land mine that is this pilot program born of a partnership between two good nonprofit organizations.  Today was the first day of the workshop, and things did not go smoothly.  Both partner organizations were on the brink of calling it quits (but there are 15 people who have their hopes pinned on this now!)  My job could still blow up before this is all over.  And I knew that I was gambling not only with that partnership and our programs, but also with my very own employment status when I took this on.  And I still did.

Now you're questioning my sanity.

The other side of this story is that things went so well if viewed from a different angle.  15 interesting, wonderful people have hope.  There are people from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, Burma, Cuba, Iraq, Sudan, and the United States all sitting together at a table, helping one another, sharing with one another, and cheering one another on.  They are ready to take on new jobs in either a new country or a new career field.  They are in the process of renewal and not acting the least bit insane. They are putting a whole lot of chips on this new endeavor. And whether or not I am a wildcard that someone should not have used to bet: I am the facilitator. That, I think, is God's way of making sure that everyone is clear about who is responsible for renewal. (Hint: not the Wildcard Facilitator).

Renewal hurts.  Sometimes it takes awhile to look pretty.  Sometimes it looks like foolishness. And it has to happen over and over again in order for us to stay fresh. For us to become wise.  And did I mention that it hurts?

No pain, no gain.

Here

My family and I missed each other during my absence.  It was the longest that me, solo, had been away from the three of them.

My first grader bravely and enthusiastically reported the happenings of every day on the phone, always ending with, "but I REALLY REALLY miss you. Every second."  She was waiting right at the screen door when I got home, standing taller than I remembered and ready with a big hug.

The dog wormed in front of her to greet me with his paws up on the screen door, tail wagging furiously with his whole self shaking.  He has followed me into every room I enter, and graciously shared "his" couch with me for a little nap, snuggling against me.

My teenager spent a long time on the phone with me Friday night, vetting my story about my flight problems and inability to come home when planned.  She asked to accompany me to the grocery and if we could resume our tradition of reading before bedtime again.

My husband caught my arm as I rounded a corner with a sack full of laundry. He looked me straight in the eye and said in a very humble voice, "Honey, I really tried to keep up on laundry and not have the house be a mess.  But we still managed to make a lot of work for you." (I PROMISE I hadn't said a word about the house or laundry! I hadn't even sighed! I was so happy to be home I didn't even feel one bit upset about it!) I smiled and assured him that I understood how difficult running a household is. "I'm really glad you're home," and he pulled me into a big bear hug.

I was feeling a bit of pressure to do something fun with the kids.  I had promised myself that I would intentionally spend quality time with them.  But after their hellos, everyone sort of scattered and resumed previous activities.  The house had a comfortable feeling of being.

It was as if they were just happy that now I am here.  The world of our family is right again.

When I was leaving, Anna said, "I don't like when you go away, Mommy.  I don't like when Daddy goes away.  Believe it or not, I don't even like it when Molly spends the night at a friend's house.  I like when everyone is at our house the way it is supposed to be.  Me, you, Daddy, and Molly.  And Biscuit."

It is one of the nicest things about being part of a nice family.  You belong there.  When you show up, everyone is like, "Well, it's about time you're here!" and the space you are supposed to occupy is filled with you, and everything continues.  My business trip so happened to carry me to the town where my parents and one of my sisters and her family lives.  The same thing happened there.  Of course there was a spot for me on the bleachers at ball games. No fuss, just cozily there.  I can't explain that feeling.
I was born into it.

Not everyone has that experience, I have learned over the years as my awareness spread beyond the borders of my own family.  People crave belongingness. It's one of the things that Circles®, the national project the agency I work for is part of, seeks to provide.  We call ourselves a family. I believe it's why people stick with it when the going gets tough and they can't meet their goals.

Churches are supposed to be places where people can feel that belonging.  Feminists are supposed to try to make the world a place where everyone belongs.  Jesus offers that to all in himself. I think it is part of the work he wants us to carry on - to invite people into his big old family.

We don't do that well.  Not well enough.  Too many people are on the outside looking in.

What if we challenged ourselves this week to be glad people are here?  What if we acknowledged the belongingness of our families, coworkers, people we come in contact with in anything we attend this week?

There's nothing more soothing to a soul than knowing that just being here is enough.