The unbearable finiteness of almost everything....
This post does not adhere to anything in particular. As always I start with a thought and then it gets taken over by these voices in my head..........Really, I must let them vent, otherwise they create a cacophony in there. No, I do not need to see a shrink, not yet :)
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You see, she doesn't work outside home. But does that mean she just keep working on and on at home, the cycle of household chores never ends. There is all the time available, but sometimes she fails to structure it to have the most optimal outputs from - a neat house, a dedicated mother, an interested partner, someone who believes in herself, etc. Thing is, it's kind of ok sometimes not to have all the laundy sorted out at any given moment, or chase those spiders away from the corners, or keep cooking that giant head of cauliflower or cabbage to a finish (on an aside, they get pretty huge ones here), or scrub away at the tiles............Who really notices it all?
What is it with the kids nowadays? In our book, they are supposed to play on their own, together, with toys/games or without (didn't most of u'll grow up playing pretend-pretend games in your childhood?). Keeping a single child occupied with reading/writing/crafting or any kind of structured activity for more than 30 mins in itself is a tough one. And now she has the little one too in queue waiting with a hand picked storybook of her own.....just copies big sis word to word, action for action. When they are playing together, she needs to be a referee - dissuading them from fighting, bullying, scratching, clawing........, constantly paying attention, not even time enough to gather a few thoughts together.
Now with the little one having started school for half days, she seems even more harried for time. Get up, pack lunches, drop them to school, come and serve hubby breakfast even if it is toast and cornflakes most days and then finally when he is out of home, she has exactly 1.5 hours to herself before she heads out to pick the little one and it is fully taken up by meal preparations. Back home with little one and lunch and nap and then they head out to bring the elder sis. Then back to spooning food in the mouth for her, some cooling time, some activities, reading, sister times, bath time, milk time, another meal time, before story and sleep time. Sometimes she nods off to sleep with them............
Hubby comes in sometime between bath time and milk time, has tea and goes for his health routine. That leaves her with them again. What about her aspirations to being healthy? She is told that she must find time in the mornings. Ok, she accepts she needs to organise it better. She ought to go alternate days for swimming. But what about daddy time with kids? A working mom she talked to said she hands over her son immediately when the husband walks in - all yours - and this gives her some time to be at peace.
Not so for her! The few times when hubby skips this routine, he hides in the home office and catches up on reading, tweeting, blogging! On a never-to-be repeated occasion when she had finished putting kids to sleep, and loaded the dishwasher, done some preparations for the next day, she approached her reading husband and started on some small talk, to be told that we should schedule this for the mornings!!
How we raged and revolted! Her normally calm face must have contorted and very badly because he hastily laid his book or whatever aside and amended his statement. There would have been mighty repercussions. That, my friends, is the point of infinity after which it is reversed.
But there are the cracks and tremors- there is a lot of discontent, confusion, helplessness to the situation. When needs and wants are not in sync. When the role of one half is not upheld or appreciated to what it ought to be. The volcano is sleeping and there is molten lava aggregating inside. No one in particular but all are on the outside. No one can see the conflicting emotions raging inside. A wasted education, long career gap, lack of any support, a faux single parenting role........ increasing dependence, diminishing confidence, she herself has limited herself to very little. For how long before the dam bursts and what then??
What was the voice of the previous generation of stay-at-home mothers? I would really like to know.
..............................................................................................................................................................
You see, she doesn't work outside home. But does that mean she just keep working on and on at home, the cycle of household chores never ends. There is all the time available, but sometimes she fails to structure it to have the most optimal outputs from - a neat house, a dedicated mother, an interested partner, someone who believes in herself, etc. Thing is, it's kind of ok sometimes not to have all the laundy sorted out at any given moment, or chase those spiders away from the corners, or keep cooking that giant head of cauliflower or cabbage to a finish (on an aside, they get pretty huge ones here), or scrub away at the tiles............Who really notices it all?
What is it with the kids nowadays? In our book, they are supposed to play on their own, together, with toys/games or without (didn't most of u'll grow up playing pretend-pretend games in your childhood?). Keeping a single child occupied with reading/writing/crafting or any kind of structured activity for more than 30 mins in itself is a tough one. And now she has the little one too in queue waiting with a hand picked storybook of her own.....just copies big sis word to word, action for action. When they are playing together, she needs to be a referee - dissuading them from fighting, bullying, scratching, clawing........, constantly paying attention, not even time enough to gather a few thoughts together.
Now with the little one having started school for half days, she seems even more harried for time. Get up, pack lunches, drop them to school, come and serve hubby breakfast even if it is toast and cornflakes most days and then finally when he is out of home, she has exactly 1.5 hours to herself before she heads out to pick the little one and it is fully taken up by meal preparations. Back home with little one and lunch and nap and then they head out to bring the elder sis. Then back to spooning food in the mouth for her, some cooling time, some activities, reading, sister times, bath time, milk time, another meal time, before story and sleep time. Sometimes she nods off to sleep with them............
Hubby comes in sometime between bath time and milk time, has tea and goes for his health routine. That leaves her with them again. What about her aspirations to being healthy? She is told that she must find time in the mornings. Ok, she accepts she needs to organise it better. She ought to go alternate days for swimming. But what about daddy time with kids? A working mom she talked to said she hands over her son immediately when the husband walks in - all yours - and this gives her some time to be at peace.
Not so for her! The few times when hubby skips this routine, he hides in the home office and catches up on reading, tweeting, blogging! On a never-to-be repeated occasion when she had finished putting kids to sleep, and loaded the dishwasher, done some preparations for the next day, she approached her reading husband and started on some small talk, to be told that we should schedule this for the mornings!!
How we raged and revolted! Her normally calm face must have contorted and very badly because he hastily laid his book or whatever aside and amended his statement. There would have been mighty repercussions. That, my friends, is the point of infinity after which it is reversed.
But there are the cracks and tremors- there is a lot of discontent, confusion, helplessness to the situation. When needs and wants are not in sync. When the role of one half is not upheld or appreciated to what it ought to be. The volcano is sleeping and there is molten lava aggregating inside. No one in particular but all are on the outside. No one can see the conflicting emotions raging inside. A wasted education, long career gap, lack of any support, a faux single parenting role........ increasing dependence, diminishing confidence, she herself has limited herself to very little. For how long before the dam bursts and what then??
What was the voice of the previous generation of stay-at-home mothers? I would really like to know.
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