Facing a layoff

Yesterday at noon, my husband was sure he'd be laid off today. By two he had heard through the grapevine that he had received a reprieve in a behind-closed-doors shouting match. We are not feeling very secure in our income right now.

I'm using the following precepts, very loosely borrowed from yoga, to deal with the situation.

1. Open to grace. I believe we need to continue to notice and enjoy our blessings, and also open to any gifts that may come to us. This may involve sharing our worries to some extent with our circle, who cannot help if they don't know about any problem. In church we pray for those who are in grief or distress, facing medical treatment, etc., and I realize that we are none of those.

2. Ground yourself to the earth. For me this is currently taking the form of determining what our values and priorities are. I have become aware today that my job may be to maintain normalcy as my husband is stressed out. I am too, but I think I need to bury it for the kids. We need to decide what is important, and it is emerging to me that what is important is to live as happily as possible, especially for the kids.

It also means to me being very concrete in our defining options and making decisions. For instance, our initial response to this uncertainty is to stockpile money, which makes me feel rather hopeless because it is so amorphous. I'm hoping to come up with something more concrete -- decide how much money we want to save this month and create a budget, which gives us a more positive goal to work toward, rather than looking at any spending at all as a failure, and allows some fun or necessary expenditures.

3. Open, reach, stretch. So I'm not so sure what this means to me today. Perhaps I'm still working on 1 and 2.

I Surrender! I Take It Back!

When I was a new mother of a single baby, I did not immediately surrender to motherhood. I especially did not surrender to homemaking. But as time went by and I had two additional babies (eventually, three children under five), I did. I was a mother and a homemaker, and I came close to embracing that role in my life as well as in at least one holiday letter sent out to friends and relatives. My relationship with housework has always been rough, but I do accept it as my responsibility, currently, although I do expect some help (and I don't do laundry).

But now I'm wanting to take a little back, to find a little ambition and figure out what to do with it. The first step is to permanently give up any thoughts of having any more babies. I know we're done, I really do, and there are plenty of good reasons not to have any more babies, but I still find it hard to state definitively that this is it. Nobody I tell believes me.

The second step may be to figure out which ambition to follow. Should I try to save the world? Should I try to write that bestselling historical novel? I have enviable leisure to figure that out; well maybe not leisure, exactly, but I don't have to work for a living, currently; I just have to take care of a house and three kids.

My biggest problem? I feel like my creativity is stuck, and I don't know how to crack it open. I think that my calling is to write. I am a published technical writer, but that, I'm almost sure is not my calling. I love to read. Lately my reading list has been a bit bland -- books about homeschooling, homemaking, and chick lit, mostly. But I'm a historical fiction nut. I love A Midwife's Tale, by Laurel Ulrich. I read fantasy: Judith Tarr, Ursula Le Guin, Shari Tepper, Anne McCaffrey. I like mysteries, but of all the genre's I read, I'd be surprised if I ever wrote mysteries. But where do I find the stories? I don't seem to have them. Maybe a scene here or there, but no complete story arcs. Maybe non-fiction is a better bet for me?

And then there's this baggage from my last worthwhile endeavor -- that is, being a mother to young kids. I still have those kids, and I'm still committed to giving them the best childhood that I can. It's just that I want to find a little something meaningful for myself, too. I'm petrified, that I'll look up in fifteen years and wonder what I thought I was doing with all that time. I recently listened to an interview with a homeschooling mother of one, whose life still seems to center around homeschooling -- her only daughter is 28! I don't want to send my boys to school, but I recognize that I'm afraid of the work of finding and following through with an alternative. There is an alternative school within commuting distance, but I'd have to work to pay the tuition. We have a relaxed lifestyle at home now, and that would change if we went that route.

And somewhere in there is finding some time for this new ambition. Although it's true that my kids are less work than when they were 0, 2, and 4 (they must be, right?), I find it hard to actually find that time in my day. Apart from creating and cleaning up three meals a day, plus snacks, plus keeping the house in acceptable shape, not to mention answering a hundred questions an hour with a smile on my face, there are plenty of family-type projects to work on, from photo albums to family movies to family room shades. And I've always struggled with routines -- I think I want one, I may even spend time creating one on paper, yet they never last for long. Yet I think that is what I need to carve out time for me.

Part of me is ready to jump right in, but another part of me thinks I need to educate myself first. I don't know enough to be able to write like Diana Gabaldon. And even though J. K. Rowling gets plenty of criticism, she seems to know plenty of history, mythology, and literature. Natalie Goldberg says to be specific: not just tree, but sycamore. I don't know anything about trees! But how to get there? What the heck did I do for nineteen years of school?! I think it has to be independent study, but I wish I had a way to make myself accountable for it.

But that is the beginning of my plan: 1) Read. Read more widely. Read things that are difficult. Think about and form opionions about what I read. 2) Write. Attempt to write fiction. If scenes are all I have, then just write scenes.

Splitting Household Work

In response to Laura at 11D:

For the record, before I start, I do consider myself a liberal feminist! I work very part-time, so the house and family is my main job. I married a good guy, and agree that’s #1 in importance on the list of how to avoid getting stuck with all the drudgery when there are children in the picture. I’d say #2 is to have a division of labor, stick to it, and don’t nag the other about their work. My observation is that this is very difficult for some people!

At our house we have a fairly traditional distribution of the workload. He works all week (plus 2 part-time jobs as a firefighter and EMT). I take care of the kids, shopping, meals, money, and the cleaning and organizing inside the house. He takes care of the yard work (except gardening, which at our house is optional) and other outside work (gutters, etc.). He fixes stuff that he can fix, mounts things to the wall, etc. He generally handles the kids’ sports events on weekends. In addition to the fairly tradition breakdown of jobs, he folds all the laundry (often on Sundays, in front of the football game), and (sort of) takes care of one bathroom. We occasionally chip in on the other’s job. There are definitely things that don’t get done, or at least not as often as they probably should. My priority (and I think our priority) is a happy family life, and organizing closets comes second (or tenth). I crisis clean for guests, but I’m not generally in a panic about the state of the house. It’s undeniably lived in, but far from squalor. It’s our medium, and it wouldn’t fit everyone.

For better or worse tradition often exists because it worked in some way. We didn’t plan a traditional division of labor, but it works for us. Also, I believe that routine and a general understanding of who does what job leads to less nagging and stress. It may be that the lawn hasn’t been mowed for three weeks, but he knows it, and it’s not my job, so I try to keep my mouth shut about it. I certainly don’t want him telling me how to clean the house.

I think he does feel some stress at being responsible for the family income. When I was early in our pregnancy with our third and he was very unhappy at his job I said he could quit, we’d cancel the addition we planned to build (we had money saved for it), and I would get a job. He didn’t take me up on it. It was a limited time offer, as I wanted to be home with the baby. If he wanted to switch roles now, I would do my best to figure that out (the baby is two-and-a-half and doesn’t need Mama 24x7 anymore). I think having a parent with time for the house and the kids is a good lifestyle, and I’m willing to cut costs if necessary to keep it. If we get to the point where we aren’t willing to cut costs, then I’m willing to try to find more work – I hope it wouldn’t be full-time, though.

I do worry about what my sons will think about the traditional division of labor, so we try to mix it up every now and then. He can cook a meal, and I can mow the lawn or use a power tool and we do it occasionally. We want to show them that we are both capable of doing whatever needs to be done. I think in general we both believe that, and I hope that that attitude is picked up by the kids.

Can you save the world and care for a toddler?

What's the protocol of commenting on someone else's blog, but wanting the same text for my own? I don't know. Anyway, here's my response to this:

I don't pick up after my husband (much). And I don't hear my other at home friends complaining about that either. But the kid stuff is definitely done by the moms. In very few families would the childrearing look the same if there was a different woman in charge. It *is* hard to save the world with a toddler clinging to your leg. It's hard to manage a conference call with your two-year old getting closer and closer while calling out "I poopy!" Young and childless feminists need to hear:"It's the kids, stupid." But kids need some level of consistent care. Besides, although it's a lot of work, I'm the boss, and sometimes, it's kind of fun. How's that for not answering your question (why get married?)!

I'm not sure it's why I got married (it probably isn't), but I can't picture being a stay-at-home mom with only a small income and an even smaller "career" if I didn't have the commitment of marriage attaching me to the family salary earner. And I think he and I agree that although not perfect, this arrangement is pretty darn good.

Using a PDA to organize homemaking

This is very domestic, but it's what I've been working on lately. I actually wrote this in 2003.


So far I've found one product that meets some of my needs -- that's HandyShopper, which works great for shopping lists and other lists. So far I've used it for a packing list, a running wish list (with categories like bedroom, kitchen, and people's names) and a list of books to buy or borrow. For those applications the ability to store prices is useful. In my opinion hs is good for lists that you want to categorize, and keep prices for. And it's fabulous for shopping lists. I imagine that other shopping list apps are comparable.

I haven't yet found a way that I'm happy with to keep track of housework. I'd like an application that reminded me of daily, weekly,monthly, one-time, and occasional tasks, and allows me to choose whether to record the date the task was completed. For instance I don't need to know when I did morning dishes, but I might want to know I flipped the mattress (and which way it was flipped, too). I'm experimenting with Redo, and somewhere I saw a reference to an application that puts completed todo items into datebook, but I can't remember what it was. It's entirely possible that Datebk5 has this and I'm missing it.

Another thing I'd like to do is menu planning. I'm a little rough on my planning, but it works for me. I plan meals without firm days, so at the very least I'd like an application where it's easy to change the date for a meal. I'd really like to be able to store lists of dishes and apply them to days. Ideally, I would also keep easily updateable lists of meals in the freezer --and as long as we're at it, why not a total freezer inventory.

Another thing I'd like to be able to do is review our finances on my PDA. At $40 Pocket Quicken is a bit steep, but the ability to sync with Quicken is undeniably a plus. I'm still poking around to see what's out there.


A little later . . .
I came up with a solution I think will work for me for housework. I'm using a combination of Diddlebug, Redo with the Todo list, and Datebk5. For chores for which I want to record completion dates in the calendar, I use db5 floating and repeating events. I like that I have the choice of scheduling a chore for the same day every week, or a certain amount of time after I actually complete it and mark it as complete. I use Redo with the Todo list to add chores to the Todo list that I like to be reminded of and be able to check them off when they're done,but that don't need to be stored in the calendar. Redo adds items to the list on the day that they're due. I use Diddlebug for popup reminders that I neither check off nor store in the calendar. My What's for Dinner reminder is a repeating reminder in Diddlebug. I also like Diddlebug as a timer for chores or whatever.
I'm still looking for a menu planning solution. A db5 solution would be fine. I know that some people don't like to clutter up their calendar, but I think it works better for me to have everything in one place. If I figure out filters and whatever other features, I can probably have views that focus what's listed. I wish I could find a version of the db5 manual that I could put on my PDA.

More than time slots I need categories for each day --say for chores, meals, and appointments. With my kids being 1 and 3 we rarely have more than 1 or 2 appointments in a day.

The other big feature that I could use is the ability to store lists and add them to the calendar at will. I could store chore lists, clients who may need work done, and menus in this way. I'm going to look into using the db5 and address integration this way, but it seems a shame to clutter up my address book with other types of entries. I may end up using handyshopper for menu planning. It is a good app to hold lists of things that may or may not be needed right now. Too bad it doesn't integrate with db.

At home with an intellectual life

I enjoy Half Changed World, but this week Elizabeth posted a comment from a reader criticizing at-home parents. To be honest, reading it made my stomach lurch. If it meant nothing to me, I suppose I could have let it roll off me with the internal comment that Amy's insecurities cause her to criticize what she cannot manage to do (or something of that sort). But of course, it is a challenge to have an intellectual life while raising children full-time. I am insecure about my claim to an intellectual life – always have been, even before I had kids and that must contribute to my reaction to Amy's comment.

I commented at Half Changed World:
Next week I will start my sixth year of stay-at-home motherhood. I have three boys – figuring-out-the-world five and eleven-twelfths, figuring out his moving-into-boyhood-self three-and-a-half, and learning-how-to-talk and how-everything-works nineteen months. I do not feel that I am in a multiyear desert. In fact, I feel that I have grown considerably in my time as a SAHM. I am a better person – more patient, more able to see that little actions can add up to big changes, more thoughtful about personal relationships, more knowledgeable about how the world works for real people, and with more ideas about how to make it work better. I have fabulous smart and thoughtful friends, most of whom are also stay-at-home parents. I know that staying at home can be difficult for some people, but it isn’t for everyone. Some have found/created/tapped into wonderful communities of like-minded people who nurture each-other’s spiritual and intellectual growth in the time they can find for each other.

All that is true. Paradoxically, I think it has become easier for me over time (and as more children joined our family) – perhaps it's all about managing expectations. I think a lot of my feelings can be influenced for the better by managing my expectations. I just wish my husband had some energy for that! But there is also frustration in my life – it comes and goes. Yesterday morning the two smaller kids were up early and I muttered "stupid kids" which is something I would hate to hear coming out of my husband's mouth. Sometimes I feel frustrated at my lack of career, usually when I've been reading an alumnae publication of some sort. But generally I like this life, feel lucky to have it, and don't see making any big changes any time soon.

The arguments that others have touched on about an intellectual life being overrated touch a chord with me. I think there is a great opportunity for spiritual growth in parenthood. I think of all those spiritual writers who discuss finding yourself in the everyday tasks of doing dishes, gardening, baking bread. Of course, those who are identified as spiritual do it without interruption. We who parent have the larger challenge of doing those tasks with constant interruptions. But I am absolutely convinced that there is personal and spiritual growth to be found in that kind of life. I’ll even claim to have found a little of it.

I’ll speak in a classist way here, for those who have a choice, but I believe that there are some people whose work is important, and outweighs the needs of their children. I don’t think that anything I do falls into that category, and so the most important thing I can do is raise children who can make the world a better place. I think I can do that best by being with them, and by giving them the opportunity to learn without being in school. I hope they have revolutionary ideas about improving the world. And I hope I will work alongside them to implement them.

P.S. You know what? Forget all this and go read The Mommy Chronicles.

Educating women

I’m sure I’m not the only educated woman at home with my kids who has a blog, but I don’t read more than a handful of blogs, so I haven’t read other responses from people like me to the NY Times Article about Yale women planning not to have careers.

So here are some of my thoughts (and my husband’s) – I’m sure someone else has said it better.

First of all, nearly all college educations are not like vocational training. Instead, and education teaches you how to learn. Very few people have a job that exactly utilizes their degree – I didn’t, even when I was working, and my husband doesn’t either, and of course, I don’t now, as a stay-at-home mom. But I use my ability to learn constantly. I read about education and parenting, and provide plenty of information about how the world works. I love reading and learning and I (mostly unconsciously) model that for my kids.

In the past, women have made up a large, unpaid, community workforce, doing volunteer work. I’m not a big volunteer, but I am working on a library committee that is currently working to get a new library or a library addition built. I can’t say I’m exactly using my education, but I’d really like to reject that argument as completely irrelevant, since most people don’t exactly use their educations in their jobs. The committee members do need to be politically savvy, able to deal with finance issues, how to work with town government, architects, accountants, and other professionals. Like any job dealing with professionals, it is useful to speak the same language, and tossing around a credential of sorts or two won't hurt the working relationship any.

There are no guarantees that women will find husbands who also buy into their idea of having a single-income family, or that circumstances won’t require that they work (divorce, for instance, or death of their husband). A good education increases your ability to get a good job, and therefore increases the possibility of working part-time to make the money the family needs. In my own case, I’ve been able to work part-time from home for consulting rates since I’ve had my kids, which is the best of both worlds, as far as I’m concerned.

I think the women interviewed in the article are so young that they don’t have a vision of what they might do after their kids are grown. Perhaps they won’t need or want to work then, either, but if they do, they will have credentials to use.

I would hate to see higher education be lost as a choice for women. I loved getting my degrees (well, at least to some extent). I met fabulous people, I learned tons, I came out of my shell in a way that I’m not sure would have happened in any other venue. Of course, I also met my husband while in college, but that is another story. It’s not like ROTC, where they pay and you owe, is it? Or am I somehow wrong?

Fulfilling Motherhood

Hubby and I watched Garden State the other day. It’s another one of those movies that reminds me that many, many people feel just hopeless in their lives. Can I state for the record that I do not feel that way? There have been times in my life when I have, but I don’t now and hope to never feel that way again. I count my blessings. Life is busy taking care of a house and three little people, and I don’t have as much leisure time as I might like, but I do not hate my life.

I’m usually pretty happy with my lifestyle as a SAHM. I live in my insulated little world, and my friends and I all congratulate each other on our excellent parenting. Every now and then I emerge enough into the other world to recognize what I don’t have. Last year when the baby was very small, when I was still measuring his age in weeks, I went to my 10-year graduate school reunion. I got to introduce myself as a stay-at-home mom to people who create policy and run companies and governments. I said I wrote letters to the editor (had to say I did something “worthwhile”).

This weekend I’m going to a baby shower for a college friend. In college she was very fun. Now she’s a pathologist. I can hardly fathom what it is she does and the amount of knowledge she’s crammed into her head. So on Sunday I will be leaving my safe little world and heading out (without children) to talk to people who may not be parenting small people. Who may be doing highly worthwhile work. Who, if they have children, may not parent like me. I am nervous.

No value judgments, of course.

Expectations and Reality

I was raised with a wealth of expectations. I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I never answered that I wanted to be a mother and housewife -- that was not a correct answer to the question (and not an answer I would have given anyway)! I was bright (still am, I hope) and took difficult courses in high school, went to college, and then three years later, did a professional master's degree at an well-known university.

Last week my women's circle topic was a look back at 2004 and a look forward to our hopes for 2005. Although I had thought about what I wanted to say, it still shocked me a bit to hear it come out of my mouth: I want to be a better mother; I want to develop more routine to my housework; I want to support my husband in his search for a new job. Who is this person? I'm not unhappy with my choices, but they are so at odds with the way I've viewed myself for so long. I identify myself as liberal and a feminist, and when I hear myself say these things I think I sound conservative. But I am not. And I don't know why conservatives have a perceived monopoly on making motherhood and homemaking a profession. The individual tasks I do each day to take care of my family are not difficult, but as a whole, it is a complicated job and a time consuming one. I know how to shop for a week's worth of food for my family. That's not a task that is glorified, but it also isn't one just anyone can do -- witness the men in the supermarket, cell phone in hand talking to the primary shopper (not that I'm saying that no men know how to grocery shop -- I'm just saying that it is a learned skill). I know the rhythm of my children's days, and can usually manage sleep and hunger issues so that the kids avoid meltdowns. Daddy is not as good at this because he isn't with the kids every day. He also isn't always willing to listen to my guidance because he doesn't always value my knowledge. Society does not value the work done by a mother and housewife.

As a liberal, I feel ashamed of saying that taking care of a family is a difficult job that takes some skill and is worth doing well. When I see emails with quotes about the value of motherhood at the end, I assume the sender is conservative. It should not be that way. I'm liberal, and I still believe quotes like this one even though they make me wince:

"The mother is the most precious possession of the nation, so precious that society advances its highest well-being when it protects the functions of the mother."

~Ellen Key

I think sometimes about taking to young women at my alma mater,
and what I would say about the life ahead of them. I'm not sure they would listen -- I don't think I would have. But I would tell them that most women (I think 80%) have children, and that it makes sense to think a little about that and plan for it. They can watch women they work with to see how they handle balancing motherhood and work. I would suggest that considering money and income before children arrive allows for more choices after. If anyone had told me to marry a good provider I would have laughed and said that I would provide for myself, thank you very much. But a husband or partner with a good income provides choices about staying home or working.

All of this feels like disloyalty to feminism and liberalism, but it shouldn't be. Raising a family is work, however it's apportioned between parents and paid caregivers and household help -- the work is valuable and should be valued by all people, regardless of politics. Recognizing the value of parenting and homemaking would allow young people to make more realistic plans about their future, perhaps choosing careers or employers that would make balancing family and work easier.

Why Stay at Home

I'm inspired by Laura's discussion at 11D to write a little on my view of parenting. For me the decision to stay at home doesn't have much to do with research on child care. I stay home in part because I want to make a difference in how my kids grow intellectually and emotionally. I want to impart my own (liberal) values to them. Maybe I could do that if they were in daycare and I worked, but I'm not sure there are enough hours in the day.

This is a quote from Tim Burke's essay that Laura refers to:

. . . .our children will not be us. Modern middle-class Americans are more confused than most about this fact. We hope our children will be better than us. We hope that they will be us. We fear that they will be worse than us.

I don't feel guilty for wanting my kids to be better than me, and I am hopeful that my stay-at-home parenting can make a difference in that goal. I want them to be happier than I, more productive, better in relationships. I want them to make decisions that protect the earth - I want that to be second nature to them. I can identify the wrong decision, and then still choose it. My hope is that if I bring up my kids with enough connection to the earth, they will not be able to do that. I want my kids to be sensitive to issues of race and gender. I want my boys to grow up to be good boyfriends and husbands, and good fathers to both sons and daughters (even though they will grow up without a sister). I want them to be able to find as children and as adults the activities that are both fulfilling for them and useful to the world. I want them to be able to call on the feeling of being loved at any time, because it was internalized when they were small, and not ever feel as an adult so small and lousy that they are literally ready to crawl under a desk or into some other hole. I want them to be able to find answers to their questions in a reasonable amount of time - and I want their environment to be creating worthwhile questions in their heads about how the world is and how things work. I want them to be out in the world, learning about the world, and not inside all day in fluorescent light and a room that smells vaguely of pee and institutional food.

I also stay at home because my career as a technical writer can be done from home, part-time. I'm not doing much work right now, but as the kids get bigger I hope to ramp up a little. I do miss having my own money.

Staying at home is also a lifestyle choice. (I realize that we are lucky to have that choice since my husband makes enough to support the family). My husband can concentrate on his work, while I take care of the kids and the house during the week. If someone is sick (as long as it's not me - there's probably another post in that topic), then I stay home, just like always. I can shop and plan meals and run other errands. I think having one parent at home can ease the strains of everyday life, and as long as both partners are happy with the situation, increase the likelihood of a happy marriage.