My friend who is expecting her 5th said that she spent her early motherhood being angry with herself, her children, and God. She thought motherhood would be like a Fischer Price commercial. When she had three babies in as many years, she realized that parenting was more like indentured servitude. It feels that way many days, doesn’t it? Like we’re working off an inflated debt to pay for our family to come to the promised land. We do it out of love, but sometimes it feels like the hard way. Especially if you are home slogging in it all day long.
I used to think that it was all unskilled labor in a pot of drudgery, all the housework. This is because it is unskilled labor in a pot of drudgery. Everything you do is quickly undone. What? You people are still wearing clothes? Didn’t we just eat? Look how nice the floors look now that I– oh never mind, you can’t tell anymore. How did we go through that much toilet paper?! Haven’t I told you kids a hundred times that glue sticks are not the same as chapsticks? What? You need more hugs?? I just hugged you this morning!
And God help the parent who actually cares that their house be presentable day-to-day. (I have genes on my side for that one. Thanks for the domestic apathy, mom!)
Anyway, before I get too run away with the delights and diversions of being at home with your kids and crumbs, I want to make a point about the value of personally dealing with those kids and crumbs. It’s not always the great pursuit I thought it was going to be; day to day can be more taxing than rewarding. Anna Quindlen, one of my idols, said of raising her children, “It’s as though we were working long repetitive shifts on an assembly line, and in the end we had the Sistine Chapel.”
I agree, but with one important caveat. The assembly-line is rather fun. Things get changed up, the people around you are your nearest and dearest, and they often say or do adorable things. The trick is to forget about the work. By this I mean don’t do it.
It’s only when the annual fridge cleaning comes around that I lose sight of the sweet things circling my ankles and become annoyed by their vulture-like pecking. Kids are enough work; I don’t want to be my own slave driver and expect it all to look like it does in the commercials.
But if it’s not you doing the industry minimum there with your children, it’s not you building the work of art.
Help, is, of course, perfectly acceptable. Only you know how much help you need. No child should be raised without help. But please don’t take some other woman away from her children for minimum wage just because you think all of the day-to-day services you offer your children are insignificant. That it doesn’t matter who offers them.
Motherhood, fatherhood, parenthood matters. Your baby needs you, your toddler needs you, your school-age children need you. Your teenager really needs you. It could be argued that I still need my mother. A woman who was doing my hair was talking about how her daughter was older now. “She doesn’t need me anymore,” she said, sounding partly sad and partly free. “How old is she?” I asked.
“Six.”
Sadly, this sentiment is not uncommon. This woman’s daughter is just now entering the part of her life where she might remember who it was that made her muffins, read her favorite book over and over, and didn’t even huff around (much) when she wet the bed again. After all, it’s not in the planned-for moments of quality time that your children come to you with what is on their hearts–it’s when they turn back and you’re still there, still working for them, after all this time.
