October 07, 2004
Mommy guilt
Over at 11D, Laura is having a very interesting conference this week about Moms, Dads, kids and work (and life in general). Go check it out, it's really a great concept and very interesting, and maybe you can even add your 2 cents.
I haven't, so far, although not for the lack of trying. I have started a comment to almost every topic. I then let it sit before posting, re-read and noticed I was being really defensive, then trashed it. (Or I showed it to Doug and he said, why are you so defensive?) This happened some five or six times before I gave up and no I'm just reading the damn thing.
Is that bizarre, or what?
Maybe it's because I'm not a working mom, but I also don't really qualify as a SAHM. I have a fulltime nanny, after all. Not only do I not add to our income or do something productive for the feminist movement, I'm also not a dedicated mother who spends hours teaching her two-year-old the ABC's. Needless to say that he can't tell an A from an X. And he insists that blue is really green. Oh, and we almost never have desserts. You'd think with all the time I have on my hands, we'd have a fancy dessert every night.
Now I could become all defensive again and tell you about my days, how full of errands they are and how long it takes to pay the internet bill... but the truth is, although I do a lot and drive a car pool three days a week, although I run around every day for hours and cook a dinner and a lunch, although I have a magnetic board in the kitchen with all the tasks I need to do this week, I do have enough time most of the days to kick back and goof around online, or rest a bit, or have a leisurely cup of coffee over the newspaper -- or even do all three.
So, it seems I'm a bad mother. But here's the strange thing: my kids really like me. Huh. Granted, it's probably not the best indicator there is, scientifically speaking the poll is heavily skewed, but as long as my kids are happy, I must be doing something right. So why all this guilt?
Truth to tell, I don't know. Maybe it's because of conversations like this one, which I had with an acquaintance back in November 2003:
-- So, how do you like life in Romania?
-- Oh, we like it just fine.
-- Are you working?
-- No, I don't have a work permit, I'm not allowed to work. [And why this particular fact boggles Americans so much, what with their green cards, completely eludes me.]
-- Oh? But didn't you say you have a nanny?
-- Yes, we do.
-- And didn't Doug mention you have a maid, too?
-- Yes.
-- So what do you do all day long?
(Mind you, this was in the house of my sister-in-law, who has four kids, worked until kid no. 3, is now a SAHM who always has kids over for playdates, has no help and a clean house. No desserts every night, though. Talk about a guilt-inducing evironment.)
I'm always on the verge of firing my maid because she enrages me and I think I could really do all the housework myself. And then I don't because I know she needs the money badly. So I just continue feeling vaguely guilty. I'm sure this all will come back to haunt me when we eventually move back to the States. I will not remember how to iron a shirt or clean the toilet. I will get a low-paid job because I never finished my degree and have no work experience to impress McDonald's with. My kids will hate me because all the other mothers are doing cool things. (I'm very Catholic in this respect -- a lazy, comfortable life will be punished!) I guess I will have to deal with that when it comes to it.
So what do I answer when people ask me what I do all day? Heh, I could simply say "I'm feeling guilty." I suppose it would stop some people in their tracks. Nobody is going to be impressed when I tell them I make the world's best brownies.
This morning, I asked Alan, "Are you having a nice childhood?" and he answered, "yes". Of course, he would have also answered in the affirmative had I asked him whether he likes dog poop, but it did make me feel better.
For about five seconds.
Posted by claudia at October 7, 2004 08:56 AM"I'm very Catholic in this respect -- a lazy, comfortable life will be punished!"
The Hell you say! First damned thing I ditched when I got out. As the Cubans say, "Work is sacred; don't touch it!"
Bernard "Too Lazy To Fail" Guerrero
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at October 7, 2004 02:55 PM"No, I don't have a work permit, I'm not allowed to work. [And why this particular fact boggles Americans so much, what with their green cards, completely eludes me.]"
Hee! If I may reciprocate, the German fascination with the issuance, maintainance, and exchange of various stickers, cards and carbon copied permits likewise eludes me.
I'd bet you'd be aghast at the numbers of kind, orderly, productive and otherwise law-abiding citizens who routinely drive around my neighborhood in trucks with expired inspection permits, using expired operators' permits, with unregistered long-guns prominently on view in unlocked racks in the rear window. And the farther south in Texas one goes, the more likely those hardworking productive taxpayers are NON-citizens. Illegal residents, even. "Green card! We don't need no stickin' green card!"
It is a matter of some SERIOUS debate, hard feeling, and strife that such permits as ARE offered (voters' registration, insurance enrollment cards, driver's licenses, PILOT's licenses ...) are in some jurisdictions, by law, available to non-citizens and the otherwise un-documented. Go in with an electric bill in your name showing you pay the utilites at a local address -- and Bob's Your Uncle: here's your permit to vote, at least in local elections.
It's harder to get a library card -- the library at least stands the risk of somebody stealing something worth having -- a VHS videotape, maybe, or an LP... Certainly something more important than a silly little vote!
"I'd bet you'd be aghast at the numbers of kind, orderly, productive and otherwise law-abiding citizens who routinely drive around my neighborhood in trucks with expired inspection permits"
Guilty. Though I regularly contest the tickets anyway. Always a good chance the cop won't show or will let you plea down to a pittance.
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at October 7, 2004 06:57 PMIn the parts of South America I'm familiar with, a great deal of what would elsewhere be done over the phone or through the mail, is instead accomplished by going somewhere and standing in a line, often enough to find that it's necessary to come back tomorrow, with an additional slip of paper, or when Sr. X or Srta. Y should have returned, or....
And in Romania?
Posted by: johne at October 7, 2004 09:52 PMWe live complex lives in a complex world. Cooking and cleaning are no longer the ultimate yardstick that defines a female human's value, nor is earning money. The human equations are far more complex than that. They always were, it was just easier to point at consistant visible commonality before. There are/were people who keep spotless houses, earn lots of money and bake cookies and still emotionally screw up all the people around them. Sometimes *because* they are such perfectionists. Balance and relationships are more important than "tasks". And while I don't know you as well as I would like too... based on what I do know I think you live a life that is giving your sons good happy solid foundations and you are a positive force in the lives of many other people you touch.
You are a good mother.
You are a good wife.
You are a good person.
Hugs
Life doesn't have to be hard to be valuable or productive. Abundance and Joy are the goals, then you get to share, which you already do quite a bit of.
More Hugs
Posted by: Lynette at October 8, 2004 12:47 AMYou are a good mom. Household work or lack of it does not define good motherhood--actual mothering does. Don't let anyone tell you anything else.
Posted by: Bad Mama Carrie at October 8, 2004 01:14 AMCarrie, why are you Bad? :^)
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at October 8, 2004 01:22 AMBernard,
I am bad because I forget to feed my child, I don't bathe her until she smells funny, and I let her watch C.S.I. with me when she won't go to sleep, which is rather often. She is too young to eat brownies now (I'm bad, but I'm not terrible and feed her chocolate at 8 months, and I don't feed her sweets or junk food when I do get around to feeding her), but I doubt I'll manage to make them very often when she is older.
Check out the link in my name on this post and I have a longer explanation. :-)
Posted by: Bad Mama Carrie at October 8, 2004 05:06 AMWhoops, that link wasn't what it was supposed to be. Try the one in *this* post.
Posted by: Bad Mama Carrie at October 8, 2004 05:09 AMDessert is unhealthy so feel responsible instead of guilty.
Posted by: :) at October 8, 2004 07:42 AMUh. So many answers! OK, here we go:
Bernard -- I'm UU now, sort of. But the Catholic upbringing still lingers in my subconsciousness (and I'm not even raised particularly religious or anything, just swallowed that stuff at church and in school).
Pouncer -- no carbon copies in Germany anymore. What are you thinking, that the information age hasn't reached us yet? Now we get two printouts... And yes, I'm German, so I'm not doing anything against the law. That's the way I'm wired and that's why I stood in line for nine hours at INS (excuse me, it's USCIS now) to get my one year green card travel and work permit stamp into my passport.
Johne -- yup. Standing in line is a good old Romanian tradition. I try to avoid it by paying my bills some days late, at odd times of the day when the bulk of people have already paid/are still in bed/at work/at breakfast. It still takes about one hour to pay the stupid internet bill.
Lynette -- thanks. I actually think I'm a good mother, I just wonder why I always feel so guilty. Maybe because I'm like Carrie in that I...
Carrie -- ... used to forget to feed Alan all the time, and he's the 3-percentile-ribs-sticking-out-skinny baby who had to be supplemented at age 6 weeks. And I didn't bathe him more than once a week. It's all much easier now that he has a brother and we have a routine. Routine, I come to realize, is important for the lazy and forgetful and internet-addicted.
:-) -- well. Desserts are yummy and make you feel good but I also wasn't brought up with desserts every day. We often have fruit for dessert, though. Or yoghurt. Healthy stuff but definitely not off the Martha Stewart webpage. (The world's best brownies are, though.)
Posted by: claudia at October 8, 2004 09:11 AMAh well, my actual German experience is 15 years old ... except for one co-worker who is both German and an accountant who exaggerates my perspective on the matter.
She HATES "accountable" documents which are printed off from the PC -- "Why, anybody can fake up anthing!" (Dan Rather should have had a good German accountant on his team.) On the other hand, according to her, the blue carbon marks on the third (pink) copy of the accountable form are recognizably exactly the same as the marks on the fourth (yellow), second (light green) and original (white) form (done in BLUE, not BLACK ink, for technical reasons which escape memory at the moment...) and even if some nefarious operator insert a new piece of carbon paper between the pink copy and a blank piece of paper and attempt to add spurious marks to the copy, it would be INSTANTLY DETECTABLE to a trained and conscientious observer -- also for technical reasons which I don't remember, understand, or entirely believe.
Americans are very -- shamelessly -- LAX about how we handle such matters, I'm told.
Posted by: Pouncer at October 8, 2004 06:38 PM"It still takes about one hour to pay the stupid internet bill."
Some of the productivity improvements that IT has generated get overlooked very easily. I'm starting to forget what stamps look like, much less lines. Except for some dealings with the DMV, of course, but even that's significantly less painful than I recall from my teenage years.
Though I spent my teenage years in New Jersey, so dealing with the DMV was a cross between a trip to the dentist and a tax audit...
For heaven's sake, if you're forced to carry out all or most of the transactions of modern life in person, it's a tribute to you if you are able to spend any very large part of the day with your family.
In South America, if an urban, middle class family is large enough, it often has one member who more or less devotes most of their time to take care of such tasks for all the rest. In many offices and shops, on the other hand, workmates are accustomed to cover for one another while they take it in turn to be gone for a good part of at least one day a week taking care of matters, not having the luxury of a relative who can be put to that task. (Often that's why the functionary you need is absent, requiring you to return tomorrow: they are standing in a line in some other office.)
Of course, if you're rich enough to pay someone else to take care of things, or poor enough not to be involved in them, it's a different story. But standing in line is certainly an exasperating way to burn resources and develop a guilt complex. Explaining to one's polite but skeptical North American boss, how one spends a typical work day is always an interesting exercise.