Wow. Has it really been since April? It’s been so long because, to be honest, I’m kind of miserable. It’s hard to find things to write about when all you want to do is find things to whine about. So, in the interest of being a healthy adult with the powers of introspection, I will try to outline what makes me want to poke my eyes out about being a stay at home mom (SAHM, for the acronymically-inclined). Now, don’t get me wrong, I know it could be worse. I’m not saying that I’ve got a job more horrible than a Chilean miner or migrant worker. As these comedy sketches show, a lot of times, when SAHMs complain, it just sounds kind of whiny and self-pitying. And it is. I know, you sit and watch Desperate Housewives and wonder what they’ve got to complain about, why they’re so very desperate, and why they need to hook up with the pool boy. I know that it’s a luxury to have a choice whether I work or not, and I know that in the grand scheme of the world, my life is amazingly easy.
That will not, however, keep me from complaining. To wit, here is what I do not like:
1. It’s like being at my job 24/7. I know, many of you work long hours. You work weekends. Maybe you’re a firefighter and work for 3 days straight. But at some point, you leave. You go home. Or somewhere. Yes, you may go home to a crabby wife and two kids with dirty diapers and a house that could give you a flesh-eating bacteria, but it’s a different place, with different responsibilities. I often think to myself, at 3am on a Sunday, or 2pm on a Tuesday, or 7pm on a Saturday “This is exactly the same thing I will be doing and thinking about tomorrow. And the day after that.” I get all Macbeth about it. And the despondency sets in. Because it’s not just that I’m at said job 24/7, it’s that the job is kind of sucky, frankly. Enter next point:
2. My bosses are batshit crazy. Honestly, if you had bosses like this, you would walk out. Bosses who demand something from you, with tears and yelling, and then when you produce it, throw it across the room. Bosses who ignore your every request, even when you are standing right in front of them asking then, cajoling them, bargaining with them. Bosses who wake you up at night for no apparent reason at all, but will only let you sleep for 45 minute intervals, and then are really pissy the next day because they’re tired. Bosses who crap their pants. Bosses who actively fight against you, not in a stealthy, frenemy sort of workplace way — at least those people give you a fake smile and bring cupcakes on your birthday or something (and then say “I know you probably are trying to lose weight [significant look at your hips] but I just couldn’t resist.”). No, this is a very literal fighting, over everything, from a polite request to put on shoes, to a not-so-polite request to stop screaming in the bread aisle. It gets very tiring to hear “NO! I! DON’T! WANT! TO!” when all you’ve asked is “Would you like milk with your cereal?” Bosses with no ability to see 15 minutes into the future and realize that if you keep playing trains now, then there will be no dinner when they are so hungry that they could gnaw the radiator cover in half (oh, and did I mention being hungry makes the bosses grumpy?). And it’s not just the bosses, it’s the nature of the job:
3. There are no big thoughts and no accomplishment. This, I think, is the most wearing on me. I never think along the arc of a project anymore. I never think of the societal impact of a particular action or program. I never use the word “epistemology.” OK, maybe I don’t miss the last one so much. But never thinking beyond “what time did I put the laundry in, and should I put it in the dryer before I start chopping onions for dinner, or after?” gets really trying after a while. Especially when I was so very very happy in my ivory tower of academia, thinking about the proto-feminist applications of Foucauldian theory on 15th century literature. Wait, what’s that smell? Um, reality check, aisle 7, with diapers. And, coupled with this is the fact that nothing is ever accomplished. I could work my tail off cleaning, doing laundry, cooking, washing dishes, etc — but I just have to turn around and do exactly the same things again tomorrow. I think this is why crafting and scrapbooking are so popular among SAHMs. You work on something, and it’s FINISHED. Done! You can display it! Tell people YOU did it! And did I mention that it is now DONE? I realize, in an intellectual way, that I’m actually thinking thoughts so big that they just don’t even seem like thoughts — things like how to teach another human being to have empathy, or how to explain death. And I’m on a project that is actually so long and large in scope that it doesn’t seem like a project — I’m trying to create functional members of society over the next 15 years or so. But even though I know those things in my head, when I have just finished washing the dishes for the 3rd time that day, and somehow there is another pile waiting on the counter, that intellectual knowledge doesn’t go too far. And it doesn’t help that:
4. There is no evaluation system or vocabulary for talking about the responsibilities and accomplishments of a SAHM. If I had a “regular” job, I could talk to people about my performance review, or my raise, or how the CEO mentioned me in a staff meeting. I could tell you how many hours I’m working on my latest project, and how important it is to the organization, or how annoying it is that no one follows my project plan that I painstakingly worked on. I’d have goals, plans for reaching those goals, benchmarks along the way. But as it stands now, I have no idea if I’m doing the right things or not, if I’m helping my kids become better people or just adding to their future therapy bill. I have no way of talking with people about my day to day life in a way that can convey the stress of it. Honestly, even I, a SAHM myself, don’t have a lot of respect for the skills of SAHMs. Exactly because no one really knows if you’re doing a good job or not. I could be on par with Britney Spears, or those crazy Duggar people — or I could be some supermom, raising the first sibling Nobel Peace Prize winners. But you’d never know, and neither would I, frankly. There’s no way to measure how I’m doing, until that 15-year project has come to fruition. Every once in a while, Darwin remembers to say thank you, or gives a hug to Elijah. But more often than not, he’s yelling at me, or knocking Elijah over to steal a toy. Who knows how things are going? I sure don’t, and can’t really worry about it, because there’s another load of laundry to do.
Add into all this the smaller things like not actually talking to an adult for days at a time, or not being able to pop out to lunch or meet for drinks after work, or just stop listening to see if that’s a baby crying, or stop thinking in the background about what time Darwin tried to potty last. The not getting any time to myself the entire day, not even in the bathroom, until 9pm, when I’m too beat to enjoy it, or even just the never doing anything on my own schedule, or because I want to. I know that sounds incredibly petulant, but I am an only child. And, as Darwin screamed at me today in the gym locker room when I wouldn’t buy him a Power Bar, “I want to get what I want!” They’re smaller things, but they contribute to my housewife-y desperation.
The kicker is that all the things you think are great about being a SAHM mom really are great, and would make it really hard to give up now that I’m used to them. There’s a wonderful flexibility, and the ability to say “Today is beautiful — let’s go to the Botanic Gardens.” The ability to visit my parents for a week at a time and not have to take vacation days or worry I’m being replaced while I’m gone. Seeing Elijah’s first steps. Hearing Darwin sing a song about the right way to hold a crayon that he learned in preschool. Snuggling up and reading books on the couch together. Taking the boys to the park and seeing Darwin push Elijah on the swings and watching them both giggle hysterically. I am almost certain that I will look back in 12-15 years or so and (hopefully) say “Wow — what great people my children have grown into. I’m so glad I was there to see them all along the way and watch them become who they are.” I’ll be incredibly thankful that I was there to see them growing and becoming, and know that I had a lot to do with the people that they are. But it’s hard to see that day in the midst of the piles of laundry, dishes, leftovers and parenting books.
But, for whatever reason — getting all this off my chest, simply taking the time to ignore my children and write this, or the glass of wine I drank while typing — I feel much better now. Thank you for listening.
