Sunday, April 09, 2006

Slow Pace/ Rat Race

The pace of this life is very different from that around me. While others are speeding to work, I am sitting in a chair, feeding our child. People are sitting down to begin their day at a desk and I am washing dishes. I load the dishwasher, rinse or run it depending on how full it is. I load the washing machine. Typically I unload the dryer and fold the clothes I left in it from yesterday. I run the vacuum cleaner. In the meantime, our child has spit up on the carpet so I get out the cleaner and wipe it up. While others are going in twos and threes to lunch, I eat alone. I eat leftover dinner from the night before, or I make a salad or sandwich. Our child eats again. I'm getting bored just writing this.

Just recently a very famous article written by a (now) very famous woman suggested that being a housewife is both demeaning and unneccessary. What I do is unnecessary. According to her. I walked around feeling morose for a day or two after that. Should I be out there with the rest of you? Should I be contributing more than a hot meal for my family, a bedtime story or two? Is what I do really so expendable? Some days I would definitely answer yes. Some days, someone else would do a much better job at this than me. And with a better attitude. The jobs I do are not mentally challenging. The structure of my day allows for plenty of free time.

What she's really saying is that smart women shouldn't be at home, but it's alright for women who don't have degrees. Truly. I have a degree. I have children. I am in direct conflict with her beliefs. I should be making a solid contribution to this world and cease to do menial work. Child care is menial work. It's repetitious and mindless and boring. Sometimes.

O.K. So I come to this conclusion....this is only a short phase of my life. I can get on with work in a few years. Our children are young, and I don't want to pass them off on some child care worker somewhere. I don't want to entrust the younger years of our kids onto other people. So, yeah, what I do seems like a whole lot of nothing some days, but if I didn't do it....you'd notice. I'm a mother.

Nothing I'm saying hasn't been said before or better by someone else. It's just that it's meaningful to me. It means something to a lot of women. I'm not saying I'm better than working women, because we're all working women. I'm just saying that I can't justify working outside the home. Recently, I lamented to my own mother (who stayed home, then just recently went back to work) that I don't do anything. She said I was giving our children a happy childhood. So that's what I'm doing. I'm giving our kids a happy childhood.