I'm so glad this is not the 1950th If it were, would not nearly the amount of opportunities I have today as a woman in our society. I would not have the privilege of juggling and a wife and mother, followed by a rewarding career. I would not be setting my alarm for 5:00, so I can check e-mail and get a couple of hours before the children wake up and need to be fed and prodded along so they can come to school on time, local lunch in hand. Then it would not be scrambling off to the gym, so that they can aspire to look like a society warped ideal of what a woman should look before rushing home to complete the full day's work in just four hours to the school in time to raise children and that the driver on his piano, tennis, basketball, gymnastics or skateboarding activity a day. Then I would not be competing in the door for preparing healthy, organic meals that we all stand around the kitchen table scarfing down before the task should be done and pets should be fed and walked. And then I would not be pulling up to make a dent in the endless piles of laundry to nine at night wondering how in the world I am going to fit in all the volunteer work at school that I applied to do than to blame the loser, uninvolved mother. Large selection of the beautiful thing, right?
Women in 1950 complained about the lack of opportunities available to them and wanted to be on level playing field with their male counterparts ... rightly so. However, considering all the decisions that modern women have today, all the working mothers I know are totally overwhelmed and exhausted. While the court in the labor force gradually leveling out between the sexes, the Homefront is still grossly lopsided.
I know that there are some people out there who do not actually share responsibility equally in the house, but trust me, you're in the minority. From my very unscientific approach to polling every woman I know, from the bookclub at school pick-up loop, to shops, gym and outside of it, I assure you, the vast majority of men fall short in this arena.
so sad that women share the responsibility of the breadwinner, why is it that most households running and handling of parental responsibility falls on us? Scheduling doctor and dentist appointments, making sure children have their tasks packed in a backpack every morning, unloading the dishwasher, folding laundry, grocery shopping, school shopping, meal planning, straightening out closets, cleaning floors and bathrooms, cooking, and that , balancing the checkbook all fall under the rule of mom. I think it's OK, because Dad takes you out of the trash and get the car washed. Sounds like another trade to me.
When people decide to help, they expect recognition for this simple task. "Hey honey, did you notice I have laundry today?" "Uh, yes dear ... Have you noticed I do every other day of the week and never say one word about it ?"
Do they ever plan to advance in thinking, "Hmm ... my wife was running late from work, it's 5:00 am and surprisingly not just cooking dinner. Maybe I should formulate a plan here. " Not happening. Put people in charge of food and they make a phone call.
There is some serious catching up that needs to be done by men on the domestic front. We women just can not do it all over. Why do you think more and more women filing for divorce? We finally figured out we really do not need these guys that much more. We can bring our own trash and who cares if the car wash anyway? Only men care if the seats are pretzel crumbs in them.
So what is the modern day working mother to do? All kidding aside, I honestly would not trade the options available to me today with the limitations placed on women fifty years ago. I'd be a housewife with a serious drinking problem if they were alive then, but the state does not need to be brought into the equation. Of course a month bitch sessions ... I mean bookclub meetings help to get things off our chests, but the reality is we need to stop doing everything yourself. Our husbands are blissfully deadbeats will continue for as long as we let them. As CEO of the family, we need to learn how to delegate. If hubbie and kids do not offer, assigning work tasks almost equally well, and we should not be one bit guilty about it. Setting the rotation who drives a little Johnny on the piano every week and who folds laundry and grocery shopping is not. Or course, we will have to set this one rotation schedule ... There is another thing to add to the to-do list ... but I hope over time this will reduce the overall work and take the building are likely to feel anger towards our beloved out of the equation.
If you have already tried this approach and no amount of delegation has worked, try to go far away for a few days and leaving hubby home to fend for themselves without the help of 10,000 useful notes, and daily from one hour to deploy it in writing lead. Just let him wing it the way we do ... He will figure it out. Men really are not stupid. We do not make them, if they are married. They just pretend to be so we will continue to do everything for them and they are free to sit on the couch and drink beer after work and then wonder why we have no interest in socializing with them at 10:00, when we finally finished our day activities. At this point, I do not know about you, but I would rather sit with a glass of wine and a good book ... itself.
Well I'd trade places with his wife in 1950? It is no coincidence. But I would like to find a way to ease up to the expectations I put on myself. And yes, it's me that puts those expectations there. I was so afraid to fall short in any particular area of my life that I was trying to do everything that I would not waste opportunities that I have available to me. Nobody ever said I had to be perfect Susie homemaker. My husband certainly do not expect. He was one of those people in the minority I talked about earlier, which does not take an equal division of labor at home. It's OK if the house is in disarray, the children go to school looking like homeless children once in awhile and they do not win first place in the competition of science, because they actually did their project themselves. I'm not superwoman, and I'm done trying. I gave my best effort and all we did was the stress. I think my family still cost me, just like those before, although we sometimes need a GPS device to navigate our way through the laundry room. They love the fact that I am pursuing a rewarding career and I still find time to exercise and take care of themselves. I feel that I have a better role model for your children that way. If you mess household bothering anyone, they can pick up the slack. My plate is full enough ... and besides, I'm too damn tired to really care what anyone thinks.
0 comments:
Post a Comment