parenthood

A big helping of drudgery with bit of joy on the side.

When I first got married, I was a semester away from graduating college. During our engagement, I left my job at a local literacy center to work for a local software company, a job that yielded more income but significantly less satisfaction.
Though early married life presented its fair share of bliss, life overall was somewhat less than ideal. Since Tim still had two years left to complete his engineering degree, that left me to fulfill the role of “breadwinner”. But, as you might imagine, jobs for “almost graduates” were not particularly lucrative. Or fun, for that matter.
Add to that the fact that I came home from work on a daily basis to discover that my husband’s video game hobby was more like a habit-a fact that had not been adequately revealed to me during our courtship.
Life was somewhat monotonous. Indeed, those first few months of matrimony required adjustment.
In talking with an old friend from my early college years over the phone, I described what most of my life consisted of. She caught my hint of dissatisfaction and said, ” Susie, you have too much talent to waste it cleaning dirty toilets and dish rags.”
I immediately felt defensive. I hadn’t meant to complain. But my reality at the time was a huge helping of drudgery with a little joy on the side. And that somehow came across as dissatisfaction.
In our consumer and entertainment culture, many have grown accustomed to getting as much out of life as they possibly can. We chase lucrative careers, picture perfect families, endless entertainment, and adventures across the globe.
And why shouldn’t we? The world is literally at our fingertips. The American Dream is alive and well and our thriving economy facilitates our insatiable appetites for consumption.
And yet attaining all the world has to offer has not made us much happier. In fact, statistically-speaking, the correlation between happiness and wealth levels off at an annual income of $75K. (If one believes that happiness is measurable, anyway).
The truth is, I think happiness is often bred from drudgery. I don’t mind digging in and shoveling a bit of figurative manure because it makes the harvest that much more satisfying.
Why are we so afraid of things going wrong?
One of my daughters is a toxic perfectionist. She completely shuts down when she falls short of expectations. On everything. It’s exasperating to watch.
I wonder if she is partly the product of a world addicted to Tik Tok and Instagram. She doesn’t have either of those, but one has to wonder at how the culture is being shaped by those platforms.
Why do we think endless entertainment is the key to happiness? It certainly doesn’t build up our resilience to challenges in life.
If there’s anything this pandemic has taught me, it’s that there is joy to be found in literally any circumstance. AND, that one can be miserable and happy at the exact same time.
Except when I drag my kids out for a walk in the dead of winter and they spend the entire time whining about how cold it is and how tired they are.
There is no happiness in that. Whatsoever.

Motherhood: nice work, if you can get it.

We’ve heard that “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.”  But Oh, let me count the ways in which the importance of mothers and fathers is discounted in favor of worldly power,money or prestige.

When I was first married, I spent a few weeks a bit lost and somewhat wallowing in self-pity.  I was on the brink of graduating and, instead of having a job lined up in an exciting city on my favorite side of the country, I was working a dead-end full-time job to support my husband while he finished school.  While marriage itself was fun and fulfilling, I was grieving the loss of the possibilities that had once been mine but were temporarily sidelined in favor of our new family unit.

In a conversation with a friend from my early college years, who was a single, working professional at the time, I was given a moment of clarity.  She said(after my updating her on my perceived lowered status), “Susie, you are a smart, talented woman.  You were not made to shelve your ambitions for dish cloths and home-cooked meals.”  Something inside me recoiled.  Maybe it was my pride.  Or maybe it was something deeper.  Something telling me that she was wrong.  Dead wrong.  That laundry and baking, cleaning and supporting my husband financially did not make me subordinate or apathetic.

I turned a corner that day.  That day, I discovered that the dominant narrative in the world was fundamentally false.  Here’s what I’d been hearing, and continue to hear this day.  Women in traditional roles are weak.  Don’t waste your college education to stay at home with your kids.  Influence in the world is superior to influence in the home.  If you’re not getting paid for it, it must not be worthwhile work.  Your list of accolades determines your value to society.  Equal rights supercedes everything else.

Don’t mistake me: I’m not reigniting the mommy wars.  This is not a working mom vs. stay-at-home mom debate.  I have friends with paying jobs who “get” this.  They “get” that while they spend time outside of the home each week fulfilling a need within themselves or their families, that their most important and valuable work lies within the home.  They’re not buying the so-called progressive agenda that women with the greatest influence are sitting in board rooms and corner offices, or featured in news articles, or getting the most likes on social media.  They’re not swept up in the falsehood that to “have control over one’s body” trumps sacrificing one’s body to house a human for nine months.  They understand that while the benefits of parenthood are not easily quantified, intrinsic rewards matter.  And.  The net benefit of good parents to society is fundamental to its stability.

For all our parading about, touting the fact that we finally had a female presidential candidate, or that women command respect in a wide variety of careers across our country, or that the majority of college graduates in the U.S. are now female, we have forgotten what is truly important.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am grateful to live in a country where the possibilities for women are virtually endless.  I’m just not enamored by the insinuation that to not pursue those possibilities is being complacent.

Case in point: I read an article in recent years that said that daughters of mothers who work outside the home are more successful and their sons are more caring.  How did they measure success in the girls?  By their employment status and income status, naturally.  See what I mean?

First of all, it kind of goes without saying that whatever was modeled by the parents in a home would have a statistically significant effect on the choices of the offspring in that home.  Stay-at-home moms are more likely to breed daughters who will stay at home and likewise for working moms.  Kind of a no-brainer.

But then.  They attach the word “successful” to those who ended up working outside the home.  Because you’re not “successful” unless your collecting a paycheck or in a supervisory role at work, right?  At least that’s what they keep telling us.

This narrative is not helping our kids. It’s not helping society as a whole.  Modern feminism, for all its victories, should have stopped short at securing the right to vote, to gain an education and to have equal opportunity in employment.  What has evolved is completely anti-marriage and anti-family,is it degrading a unit that should be preserved at all costs.

Some may say my traditional view is an antiquated one.  Maybe it is.  But it works.  I am living, breathing proof of it.

I believe that marriage functions best with two equal partners-a wife who uses her gifts to bless her family and a husband who does the same.  I respect my husband’s role in our home and he values mine.  We try to complement each other, not compete.

That’s because one role is not superior to another.

Every job has some measure of drudgery, whether you get paid or not.  Raising children is no different.  Still, I’m tired of hearing that somehow I’m oppressed, or simple-minded, or complacent because I don’t have a corner office or six-figure salary.

So excuse me, I’ve got bottoms to wipe, books to read aloud, dinner to cook, art lessons to plan, piano to teach, laundry to tackle and wisdom to impart.  I don’t get paid a dime for it, nor am I guaranteed a simple “thank you”.  But it is deeply satisfying and vitally important.  And I’ll keep busting my buns to be “successful” at it.  No matter what anyone else says.