I haven't done anything to change the balance, either. I had a good job before I started having children. Then I stayed home with them. That was nine years ago. I have benefitted from the unquestionable luxury of being a women who chooses to stay home with her children, supported financially by a willing and able husband. I don't feel regret or guilt about my decision, and we've always looked at ourselves as a partnership, and continue to work toward an ideal balance of childcare and work, and domestic duties and pursuit of outside interests; but out of strict financial necessity, his work trumps mine. It has to. Would I have it any other way? Well, this is what I wanted to do. I got to choose, and I'm glad for it. It was a privilege to take this path. Many people would like to, and cannot, for a variety of reasons.
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But, man, sometimes I would just like to go off to work in the morning, and leave someone else in charge. Someone else to do the daily laundry. Think up and prepare the daily meals. Schedule the appointments, contain the domestic minutiae.
Someone else could walk to school with an eager four-year-old and a fractious and contrary two-year-old who insists, simultaneously, on not riding in the stroller and not walking beside it. So we're standing halfway up the hill, on a busy street, engaging in a mental tug-of-war ... "Come on, honey. Keep walking. Or I'll have to strap you into the stroller. Come on, sweetheart. We're going to be late. We're already late. This is driving me crazy. The kids will be waiting. I don't want to have to strap you in. You need to walk, or else I'll have to ..." And on and on and on, inching, lurching forward, sometimes at full tilt, then coming again to a standstill, till finally the inevitable happens and we are so late that he must be strapped in (screaming hysterically) and I am running--and still arrive late. "Why were you late?" "I'm sorry. Do you remember that we have swimming after school today?" "I won't go. I hate swimming." "We have to go." "But I won't. I just won't. I hate everything." "Would you like a banana muffin? We baked them this morning." [Translation: two-year-old howled for more chocolate chips while four-year-old and her friend mixed and poured batter all over the counter this morning]. Eldest daughter emerges, at last, very late. She's holding a gigantic car constructed of recyclables: of all the days to bring home this project. "I don't think you can carry that all the way to swimming, do you? Can you store it on your desk and bring it home tomorrow? Do you want a muffin?" She chooses to carry it. We're late. We walk fast. She falls far behind. "I'm still not going swimming," says the eight-year-old. "Okay, if you really don't want to, you can wait for us in the stands, but unfortunately, I do have to go in with your little brother." Silence. "Another muffin?" "I guess I'll have to go then." Two-year-old attempting stroller escape, thwarted by intrepid four-year-old, balancing precariously, with arms and legs akimbo to block all exit routes. More howls. More, "Maybe you could put that car in your backpack and rebuild it later?" More, "I hate this. This is stupid." Finally, our destination. Eldest daughter races off to the bathrooms. We wait. We're late. She's back. We enter a changeroom. We've forgotten a hair elastic. Eldest daughter races to stroller to find one. We wait. Still late. She's back. Two-year-old now naked. "Do you have to pee?" Yup, and he's considering the floor. "Please, please, please don't pee on me," someone else could mutter while racing for the bathroom clutching naked two-year-old. On the way, observe the mother with two older children who has driven here instead of walking, talking quietly to her offspring, guiding them toward the pool with preternatural calm. Return with successfully toileted two-year-old to changeroom where own offspring are fighting over who should sit where. "I might have to start cursing," someone else could say. "What does that mean?" "Nothing. I'll tell you later. When we aren't stuck in a public changeroom with holes at the top of the walls, and the judgement of strangers to guide us otherwise." We emerge, eventually, store items in locker, trip over one another, why is everyone always standing exactly blocking the direct route to anything? Finally. Pool.
This is only half of the tale.
Now, wouldn't it be nice to have someone else do that instead? Wouldn't it? Or, maybe not. It is good material, after all.
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It's what I do.
And this afternoon, someone else (our babysitter) is walking to school on my behalf ... in the rain, no less. I almost want to stop her before she heads out the door and say, go on home, I'll do it, don't worry. It's my job.
A recurring issue that's been troubling me, lately: my children have begun asking why there are no women who ... fill in the blank. Why are there no women who play hockey (in the NHL, in the playoffs, which are on every evening at our house). Why are there no women who coach kids' soccer (thankfully, we found some women coaches to counteract that observation; but it's still mostly true. It's mostly dads out there on the field). I'm trying to think of another example of "no women who ..." but can't offhand. Anyway, it's a good question. It reminds me that we aren't, exactly, who we claim to be, as a society. Our relentless message is that girls can do anything, be anything, choose anything; and while it's essentially true, there's no counter-conversation about why so many girls/women don't, and what, if anything, we should do about it.