The Good Ol' Days???

I think it's a natural instinct to want to romanticize the past. As a society, we're pretty good at it too. I mean, how else could one of the most successful musicals of the past ten years be about AIDS and poverty and include a sing-along-song called 'Seasons of Love'? (R.I.P. Rent) In more 'regular life' example, every time I tell people how our honeymoon to Costa Rica was one of the best trips I've ever been on, my husband reminds me how I cried every day, wishing I was home. Maybe by minimizing the awful our lives don't seem like such a waste, I don't know.

Part of this romanticization (that's not a word, but then at one point, neither was 'google') involves supposing that previous generations have always had it easier than us. But is it that they had it easier? Or did things just become that much more complicated?

In her Domestic Disturbances column in the NY Times today, Judith Warner discusses how the new generation of families, headed by individuals who experienced tremendous domestic upheaval throughout the seventies and eighties, long for the perceived order of the post-war era, where mothers stayed home and wore dresses and heels as they vacuumed and baked apple pies for their husbands, men who drove the new family car to work without having to deal with commuter traffic and the environmental impact of their transportation choices.

But because, as Warner says, that "order and routine and competence in our frenetic world proves forever elusive, a cruel ideal we can never reach", we have started to tell stories that dig beneath the surface of that time. Whether it's due to jealousy or arrogance, we assume that the order and routine existed only for our viewing pleasure; that despite all appearances to the contrary, they were as messed up as we are now, although not so open about it.

And maybe that's true, but then, does chaos necessarily mean that we aren't happy? That we aren't fulfilled? Can we only be content when our life reflects the set of Leave it to Beaver? I would say no, that despite all of the mess and fatigue, most of us would prefer it to the alternative. But then, maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic.

Thanks for Your Patience

I need to start posting more regularly. Needless to say, Christmas and the related festivities took over my life for the past week or so. Gavin's first Christmas was a success, if by "success" you mean "receiving a lot of toys that make a lot of noise and none of which hold my attention for longer than 4.375 minutes at a time."

Oh well.

I was also the recipient of much generosity. There were shoes and books , and some beautiful jewelry (my husband did well!), but the gift that is probably most relevant to you, Internet, was from my brother. He purchased the domain name, www.workingmotherchronicles.com, for me and so I'm going to try to move my blog there in the next few days. I'll let you know when all is said and done so that any links you have can be updated. You may also start to notice a bit more focus to my blog, and hopefully more regular postings. I'm going to try to get this blogging thing right. I appreciate your patience with me as I figure it all out.

Tweet Tweet

So I've joined Twitter. I actually signed up for it over Thanksgiving but I haven't really been using it much. Now that I've set it up so I can provide updates via my phone, it's become a bit addicting, although I'm doing a decent job of monitoring my updates. After all, there's only so much information people need to know about me. And really, my days are pretty static: go to work, eat lunch, go home, etc. As an example, one of my updates from yesterday was, "just ordered my Christmas turkey." Fascinating, I know.

But what's been interesting are the people who are now "following" me on Twitter. Most of them I know in real life. Some fill me with self-importance (Barack Obama is a follower - I know! In between dealing with the shitty economy and two unwinnable wars and planning his big Inaguration hoo-haa, he has nothing better to do than find out that the people attending Christmas at my house will be fed)

Then there are the ones who I have no clue about where they came from or why they want to know what I'm doing. There's always that moment where I second-guess myself, like, maybe I do know them but in my old age I just can't remember. I guess it's just not in my nature to want to know so much about random strangers, so it's hard for me to understand why anyone would want to know about my life when they have no idea who I am or what I'm about. Maybe this is what it is like to be famous (tongue planted firmly in cheek, although over 20 people have visited my blog in the past three days...so you know, it's getting up there).

If you aren't on Twitter, here are my likely "tweets" for this weekend, just so you can feel like you're in the loop:

Saturday morning 9:22 a.m. - leaving the house to brave the Christmas shopping crowds. I know, I know, death wish, but it's my only chance to check out the new Restoration Hardware store in Southcentre Mall.
Saturday 10:45 a.m. - finally at Restoration Hardware. Stupid people don't know how to drive. I don't think there's anything here I like, but I am going to buy something anyway so the trip doesn't feel like a total waste.
Saturday, 1:00 p.m. - should I go to Superstore, or stick a needle in my eye? Same thing.
Saturday 5:00 p.m. - Superstore was massive gong show. I don't know whose meltdown was worse, Gavin's or the lady who lost the fight for the last Elmo Live! doll. At least I have my wine gums.
Saturday 5:10pm - wine gums all gone. Feel sick.
Sunday 11:00 a.m. - heading to Farmer's Market so Gavin can have his first picture with Santa.
Sunday 12:30 - Santa smelled like beef and cheese, so Gavin knew it was not the real thing. Chaos ensued. He will probably need years of therapy.
Sunday 7:00 pm - wrapping Christmas gifts and preparing for in-laws arrival tomorrow. Hope Murray remembers to clean the toilet.

A-Ha! (and I don't mean the Norwegian pop group)

In my first ever post here, I said that this blog was kind of like my replacement for therapy. I've only been to a therapist a couple of times, never with any kind of regularity, but I think I've had what is colloquially referred to as the "a-ha! moment".

Reading over my posts lately, I realized that there is some repressed anger going on here. And while I've had some things happen in my life that sucked big time, for the most part it's been a pretty good ride. My parents are still together and I'm in contact with them and my siblings on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Thanks to their support I made it through university with two degrees and not one iota of student debt. I have a good career going, a house, two cars (I think this is a Jann Arden song) and a spoiled dog. Most importantly, I get to come home to a wonderful, loving husband and our beautiful son. In short, I really don't have much to complain about.

So I don't know why I sound so angry. I don't think it's necessarily bad to be angry - I suppose that's better than not caring at all - but maybe an attitude adjustment is in order. I wouldn't say that I'm what you'd call an angry person, but it's probably time to stop looking at life with less cynicism and more hope. Unless, of course, something really pisses me off.

Rant

I'm going to be missing more work tomorrow. Gavin's better, but now his caregiver is sick. I feel awful and guilty about the whole thing because now all the other kids at the dayhome have to make alternate arrangements and Gavin was the one that started it.

It's just so tough, making the decision to keep your kid at home or not. It used to be easy: Murray could stay with him. Now it's not so simple. I'm sure families have dealt with this for a long time, and I hope that the guys at work understand that I'm dedicated to my job despite all of this.

Honestly, I think that working mothers everywhere owe it to the rest of us to tell us how they manage to do it. Yes, Sarah Palin, I'm looking at you. What does she do if Trig is sick? Who is looking after him?

Sometimes I get mad at this whole women's movement for telling us that we can have it all. We can be mothers and lawyers or doctors or politicians and have a house out of the Martha Stewart magazine and always looked perfectly put together. And we believe them. We pursue demanding careers with the belief that when we decide to have children we will be able to make it work. We will not have to make sacrifices because the women's movement has already done all of that for us. Yeah right. They didn't tell us about the tremendous stress that comes with having a family where both parents work. They didn't tell us that, if you have children, you should strongly consider living near your family because you will need the support. They didn't tell us that you will be so tired that it will be hard to move, or about the nights spent crying because you're not sure you're doing the right thing.

So maybe that's another reason why I've started this blog, because I think we owe it to each other to tell it like it is. And right now, it pretty much sucks.

In Sickness and Health

This week I experienced the ultimate working mother "dilemma": Gavin was sick and Murray had mandatory training for his new job, so I had to stay home from work to take care of him.

I put dilemma in quotation marks because it's really not a dilemma. My child is always my first priority and work will always come second (or third or fourth) to his needs and the needs of our family. But I felt incredible guilt about the whole thing, probably worse than I've ever felt, and come on, I'm Catholic. Guilt is what we do.

It just felt like such a no-win situation. I knew I had to stay home and be with Gavin, but I felt awful about missing work. Maybe it's because my workload is finally starting to pick up and I'm feeling actually useful, or because I had just put in my request for vacation time, but I felt like I was letting work down by not being there. Then I would feel guilty for feeling bad about missing work because, as a mother, I thought I should be able to just shut that part off and think of nothing but nursing my son back to health. After all, isn't that what good mothers do?

He's better now, and we actually had a really good day together. There was one point during the afternoon when we were playing and he was just laughing away. It was so much fun and I was reminded again about how much I miss when I'm at work. I just hope he understands.