There are 2 aspects of being a stay-at-home mom that I find really hard to deal with:
1. My job is 24/7. I get no holidays, no sick leave, no vacation time. I've never gotten a raise or a promotion, and even when my responsibilities increase, I don't get an admin to take care of my scheduling conflicts and order my lunch. There is no break from my job because I always take it with me.
2. There is little sense of accomplishment with my job. No one has ever given me an award. I never get to cross things off my to-do list. We never have a "launch" party at the beginning of a project ("woo-hoo, Mom started the laundry!") or an evening at the bar to celebrate a job well done ("woo-hoo, Mom finished the laundry!"). I find it frustrating that I can never look back on the day and think, "Phew, glad I got that project off my plate, now I won't have to do it tomorrow!" since, funny thing, the dishes get dirty again tomorrow, the kids want to be fed again tomorrow, the bills still have to be paid, the laundry has to get done, etc.
I'm not sure what to do about the above. After all, it's part of the job. I'm not sure that being a trash collector would be more fun, and I'm sure it would come with issues of its own. And I still remember my pre-baby white-collar-worker days enough to remember that my 9-to-5 job was never 9-to-5 and had a bundle of issues of its own as well. But that doesn't change my need for a mental-health day every once in a while, nor does it change the fact that I feel tremendous guilt now when I need one.
I think part of my problem is that Husband and I never wrote a job description for this job. I've argued with him about it every since. Ok, to be fair, the vast majority of arguments have been in my head, and his live presence was not required, but that doesn't change the fact that there's some angst here. So what is my job?
Am I a nanny/housekeeper/chauffer/chef/secretary? Or am I a nanny, and the rest of it is the shared responsibilities of running a household of 5 people? And this, my friend, is where the angst comes from. Anyone who's taken care of 3 small children full time realizes that THAT is a job. A full time job. As this blog has attested to, if all I had to do in a day was take care of my children, we would all be happier, more well rested, more educated, less-TV-watching individuals. I could come up with cool art projects. And fun make believe stories. I could spend hours teaching them the alphabet and helping them learn to swing by themselves. And I think I would be pretty happy. Unfortunately, since we have yet to hire the housekeeper/chauffer/chef/secretary crew, someone has to do those things too. And somehow it always ends up being me. What is a fair division of labor? It's hard to argue with Husband's logic of: I'm home and available to make phone calls, do laundry, etc. He's a lousy cook and if the cooking were left to him, we'd eat spaghetti every night at 8pm. He can't take the kids places because he's at the office all day. Is it really that big a deal to load the dishwasher while the kids eat lunch? He works hard all day and some weekends to bring home the paycheck that supports this family.
It's all true. It's also why I wear the Hazel hat. And I fall down on the job. A lot more often than I would put up with if I were my boss in the working world. I like to think it's because it's humanly impossible to do everything I have to do well, every day. 'Course, Hazel did it. (I hate her!) So what is the answer? Is there an answer? Am I just stuck in grass-is-always-greener land? Or do I just grin-and-bear it until the kids grow up some and life isn't so hard? Or do I smack my poor husband in the head when he comes home and yell, "Take that you lecherous beast! You did this to me!" which would likely be satisfying, but hardly fair? Hmm. Perhaps I should just go have a martini.
Friday, January 18, 2008
If you wanted Hazel, you should have hired HER!
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4 comments:
Yes, yes, yes. What a great description of what goes on in our heads everyday.
My hubby does help, but if I need more help, I feel guilty about asking for it. And when he comes home, I feel guilty if the house is a mess and dinner isn't ready. He's never done anything to make me feel that way, I just do. sigh.
And this is why I am comfortable with a certain level of mess (though crossing that verrry fine and invisible line into the mess I cannot stand evokes an unparalleled frustration). When you are wearing all these hats (btw, MM, you forgot Cruise Director :), you just have to rotate them occasionally...and be fine with untidy. Unless you're okay with hungry or naked. I prefer untidy, but that's just me.
I've simply lowered the bar because I prefer to build rocket ships (pics tomorrow) than to pick up wayward cheerios. And no one ever died from a cheerio- covered couch. So I feel it is my duty to women everywhere not to lose my mind over those Cheerios either.
Also, Hazel's not all that. All six of those kids were in school at least 7 hours a day, none of them were in diapers, and all of them could speak in whole paragraphs. Which is to say, Hurry up, woman! You'd better have three more so that you can feel some REAL relief once they all get past the bottles-night-waking-non-verbal phase!
I have to weigh in too. The two tasks you listed are NOT the job description of a stay at home mom. They describe, I think, most EVERY woman. I, too, have to feed everyone dinner (now, granted, I do not have to clean up a cheerio covered couch afterwards but it's still work to cook and clean), I pay all the bills, I run all of the errands, I buy all of the stuff for the house to run/function. And while I don't have kids, I do have a full time job and 2 part time jobs. I am constantly ping-ponging from one crisis to another with not a lot of thanks in return. Well, I do get thanked for dinner. Every night my husband thanks me for that, even if (like last night) all we got was beans and franks because that's all I had time to do between job 1 and meetings 1 and 2. I'm not sure if he realizes how important that word is to me or how much i truly appreciate hearing it - but that is my one "thanks" that I cherish. Meanwhile, the fish, cats, dog, and all the people I work with don't say a word.
And regarding Hazel, not only were the kids out of the house 6-8 hours a day so she could get housework done, but "mom" was home with her - also, presumably, doing things to make the house run smoothly.
Frankly, I think for all of the multi-tasking, super-human, never-ending drudgery that often accompanies (or defines?) "life" all of us women should get awards.
And it's also why I can't conern myself over what Husband affectionatly calls Dust Yeti that collect in the house.
Oh I hear you.
I don't know how old your kids are. But my kids are 4.5 years apart. So I did get to the point (before doing it all over again) that you are waiting for and can say it gets easier. By the time your littlest is in preschool a day or two a week things will be more doable. They play by themselves, can actually wait a minute, sleep through the night... in theory could do a chore but we never got that far. Will you still be solely responsible for making all decisions, preparing all the food, transporting everyone, etc? YES. But it won't be so draining because you don't have to do all that and wipe butts (very often).
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