metaphortunate | under pressure

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/28665.html

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under pressure

The time I went scuba diving, one of the most fun things about it for me was the ongoing feeling that I was getting away with something. Look, world! I'm underwater and I'm breathing! I'm not supposed to be able to do this! Reality, I thumb my nose at you!

Probably it was fun because I understood how and why I was breathing underwater. If you suddenly discovered you could breathe underwater, but you didn't know how, or why, or whether the ability might go away at any point? You might not do it even if you could. You probably wouldn't go very deep.

As I've talked about a bit, post-baby I've had a surprisingly deep pink shift in my gender identity. And what has been shocking to me is what a weight off it is now that I am no longer walking that fine line between heterosexually partnered and butch. How easy it is to buy shoes. How easy it is to decide what to wear to parties. My god - I wasn't even that butch, and I had no idea how much of my energy was bound up in simply not being as femme as women are "supposed" to be. I am not saying that I should have been dressing femme before. I shouldn't have been, because I hated it. But there's two ways of looking at it.

One of them is this: earlier in my life, wearing makeup and dresses made me feel trapped and miserable, and now it makes me feel daring and fun. Therefore I should not have done it then, and I should do it now.

But there is another, insidious, pervasive, subterranean way of looking at it, which is this: look, if the only reason not to do something is because it makes you miserable, if it's all in your head, why not do what you're supposed to do? Why not do what's easy?

I just got home from a rather large party in a nice suburban home where I was the only woman there with a job. It's been a year since I had the Junebug. We still live in the city. I still work nearly full-time. Around these parts, it feels like breathing underwater. Nearly half the people I know are living like I used to and they have no kids. Nearly half the people I know are parents and the moms have quit their jobs and mostly they live in the suburbs. I know a couple of working moms but their kids are older. We could survive without my salary. Sometimes it feels like the fact that I'm pretty sure I'd be sullenly unhappy as a stay-at-home mom in the suburbs is not a good enough reason not to do it. After all, it must be better for the baaaaaaby, right? That's why everyone does it, right? What problem am I missing about our current lives that we're going to pay for later? If everyone is running for the exit, do they know something I don't? When is this air tank going to run out?

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My own experience: I love my job, and I would hate not to be doing it. (It helps that it's usually flexible and intellectually challenging.) I wouldn't be me any more without it, and I want to still be me, even if that person changes over time. I love my kids too, but if I didn't have my job, I don't know how good a mother I'd be because I'd be so miserable and disconnected.

"I'd be sullenly unhappy" is a great reason not to do something if you don't have to do it. My presumption is that anyone who tells you they know the right way to raise kids--all kids! they are all the same, that's why it's so easy to take home the wrong one and not notice!--is vastly exaggerating. And that's so even if they're not saying "all kids" but only implying it. (I have a lot of thoughts about why we're so anxious about childrearing and piling all responsibility on parents for anything that ever happens to kids, but I'll spare you--but one result of that anxiety is that every kid-related thing you do feels like it's a judgment about other people's parenting, and vice versa, and this makes everyone tense.) I like to think of Roseanne's rule: if the kids are alive at the end of the day, I've done my job.

Life would be easier if I loved my job, for sure. I don't. I like my job. It stresses me out. I have good days and bad. I am excited about my career, but my current job does not define me. OTOH, that is not surprising for the first job out of school (switched careers AGAIN), and if you don't keep going, you don't get anywhere. I know that if I had stuck with any of my three previous careers I'd probably be someplace pretty good, even though there were reasons I switched.

My "kids" are 22 and almost-26 (years!) and I have worked full time since I was 19 (with short maternity leaves). I did it partly for myself and partly because my then-husband and I couldn't face life without my income and partly because my mother worked during most of my childhood. And only a little because I din't want to be a full-time mother, I was afraid of how awful I'd be.

And it's partly class, because at my office all the staff (all women) have had to work even while raising children, while the attorneys (mostly men) have wives who stayed home, or at least didn't work until the kids were in school.

There have always been parents who worked away from the home in a way that precluded a lot of day-to-day parenting, and parents who had work at home (like farmers and weavers). And somehow children grow and learn and turn into adults, maybe not just like their parents but adults nevertheless.

Ever wonder if those people stay home (a) because they want to and (b) because they're afraid that if they don't, someday they'll be blamed for whatever goes wrong with their kid(s)?

It's totally class. I'm hell of lucky to even have this problem, but that goes without saying.

Can it really be "afraid of" if we know for a fact that someday we'll be blamed for whatever goes wrong with our kids? And by "someday" I mean "today"?

A week into this ;) so far I'm finding it freeing. Everything that ever goes wrong will be entirely my fault, full stop. Therefore, since that's in changeable and non negotiable and I'm taking all the blame no matter what, might as well do what I want to/what I gotta, and hell with it.

I am virtually certain that if I were a stay at home housewife in the fifties, I'd be drunk all the time and sleeping with the neighbors (and maybe some of their husbands...)

Everything that ever goes wrong will be entirely my fault, full stop. Therefore, since that's in changeable and non negotiable and I'm taking all the blame no matter what, might as well do what I want to/what I gotta, and hell with it.

*nods sagely and concurs*

I totally forgot to add "and an alcoholic"!

Don't forget the fun part!

Maybe a self-defense mechanism?

I do go around saying "Of course it's my fault, everything is my fault-I'm a mother." Even at work!

Right, but there will be blame regardless of whether one works full-time, overtime, part-time, not at all for pay outside the home, by taking in the real or figurative mending/washing, and so on. Like, someone will find something to blame, whether or not they can pin it on insufficient time spent bonding with your kid.

Given that, I try to acknowledge it but go on.

Well yeah. I mean, it's not like there's a choice!

I had just sold a couple of short stories when our first child was born. I had every intention of continuing the career of writer whilst being an at-home parent, but unfortunately, that ship ran straight into the iceberg of our particular reality: (1) our first child turned out to be extremely high-need in several different ways, and (2) I turned out to have severe attention deficit/executive function problems that had gone entirely undiagnosed (even unsuspected!) until then because I am so goddamn good at compensating for them WHEN I HAVE UNINTERRUPTED PEACE AND QUIET. And I kept thinking it was going to get better, and it never did. And finally, kid number two was ready to start kindergarten and I was ready to finally be able to concentrate again, and then suddenly we were in desperate need of money and I had to get a Real Job again.

I like my paid employment. It's fulfilling. If I had known earlier that I was never ever going to have the peace that I need to focus and write at the same time as the economic freedom to do so, I would have looked for permanent paid employment four years ago, back when Kid 2 turned one or so. Kid 1 could never have survived in full-time day care, or even 60-75% time, back in her preschool days. And there are certainly other kids out there like her -- but I don't think they're in the majority.

I think I've said this before, but I *love the shit* out of that icon.

And...yeah. More than half of what we end up doing is how things play out rather than plan, I think.

I - may possibly over-empathise with the "pink shift" in gender identity. I too now wear sundresses and cute sandals, where pre-kids I would have fought tooth and nail to avoid them (oh, the rows my mom and I used to get into over what I wore to church), and it feels good, in a weirdly subversive way.

The other thing, though, this thing:

look, if the only reason not to do something is because it makes you miserable, if it's all in your head, why not do what you're supposed to do? Why not do what's easy?

Well. Because it isn't easy. I mean, I guess it would be in one sense of the word, doing the expected thing, the normative thing, but "easy" is not the word I would choose to describe doing anything while miserable.

Granted, you might surprise yourself. I have moments - sometimes daily, but usually at least every two or three days - that are genuine moments of "oh my gosh this is so much fun, no wonder why people choose to stay home with their kids!" For the most part, though, this is what I'm doing because it's the position we find ourselves in, and inertia (and cash flow) keep us here, and now that we're in our own place it's not bad enough that I can feel the walls closing in and I don't feel driven to go back to work, I actually have space to enjoy my children. It's a wonderful, welcome change. And, would I go back to work if the opportunity presented itself? Absolutely.

I don't know how you feel about Dear Sugar, but this particular column - The Ghost Ship That Didn't Carry Us - seems relevant.

Yeah, and to make things more complicated, I totally hear you on the fun! Like, in a perfect world, maybe I would work half-time for a while! That would seriously not work for me right now. >:P

I fucking love that column, I reread it every once in a while.

ETA: and I am so glad that you have space to enjoy your children now and are happier in your own place and the walls aren't closing in anymore! *dance of sympathetic joy*

Edited 2012-07-08 05:49 (UTC)

Absolutely hear you on working half-time! My ideal fantasy would be to work in the mornings (and send the kids to preschool) and then to come home and spend the afternoons with them - it would be the perfect amount of solo time with them before my partner comes home.

I hope you find a balance that works well for you and your family, whatever that ends up being. :)

And, thanks :3 Y'all were seriously my biggest cheerleaders during that time period and I am so grateful for your support.

Edited 2012-07-08 06:00 (UTC)

Well the thing is, what we're doing now IS working for us! Unless it isn't and I just don't know it yet! I'm pretty freaking happy, I'm just scared that I'm Doing It Wrong & I won't find out till the Junebug is 7 and torturing cats to death, or until he's 30 and I spend my days weeping over how fast he grew up & why didn't I spend my days playing Lego with him when I could?

Ooooh, gotcha, and yeah, that's a crappy fear to have. I mean on the one hand, it's probably not uncommon? And then on the other, knowing that most other parents feel the same way isn't really helpful. It's just awesomely terrifying to have this much responsibility for the growing and shaping of another person.

I'm pretty freaking happy

I think that's a pretty solid sign that you're doing it right. :)

Mr. E, unsurprisingly, agrees with you!

But there is another, insidious, pervasive, subterranean way of looking at it, which is this: look, if the only reason not to do something is because it makes you miserable, if it's all in your head, why not do what you're supposed to do? Why not do what's easy?

Yeah, I would agree that being miserable is not easy, for me - the choice between "do what I feel is natural and take a big amount of social flak" (seriously, the things people yell on the street! the things they feel free to say in the supermarket!) and "do what society demands and feel horrible" sucks, but I'll still go with Door No 1, in no small part because it was hammered into me almost from puberty that I was a failure as A Girl, and in the great adolescent tradition of You Can't Fire Me, I Fucking Quit I decided I wasn't going to try to measure up to some apparent ideal I failed at right out of the gate. Of course I paid for this with terrible insecurity and self-doubt. Yahoo.

Sometimes it feels like the fact that I'm pretty sure I'd be sullenly unhappy as a stay-at-home mom in the suburbs is not a good enough reason not to do it. After all, it must be better for the baaaaaaby, right? That's why everyone does it, right?

This is the whole thing behind Betty Friedan - the idea that all those overeducated wives in the suburbs with their kids were going crazy with nothing to do. I think (been a while since I read the book, I'd have to check) the kids with working moms were happier and got along better. My mom wound up supporting us a lot of the time by teaching piano out of our house, which was kind of the worst aspects of both SAHM/working mom without the benefits of either.

That's what I thought, but then it seems like so many women of my generation are taking it up as a lifestyle choice.

Also, another aspect is, I don't want to think of myself as someone who is dependent on a job for happiness. I mean, isn't that kind of fucked up? To be happiest as a cog in the ol' corporate machine? Doesn't it say kind of bad things about me that historically I don't do well when solely responsible for structuring my days?

Mr. E says, of course, that whether or not it says bad things, it IS the case that historically when I am unemployed I slide into depression, so maybe suck it up and deal with reality. I like that guy.

Also, another aspect is, I don't want to think of myself as someone who is dependent on a job for happiness. I mean, isn't that kind of fucked up? To be happiest as a cog in the ol' corporate machine? Doesn't it say kind of bad things about me that historically I don't do well when solely responsible for structuring my days?

Well, but your job is something you trained for and your career is something you really like to do, right? I do agree that in these modern times there is an absurd emphasis on Having a Job and Never Doing Anything Else, but that's not what you're doing. I do think we all, just as human beings, need jobs and careers and hobbies and projects and what have you - not "just" to make a living or fill up our time, but to provide that basic human need of "I can do something/I have done this." Generally, I think people who are unable to have that in their own daily lives are really unhappy. - Also, most people I know do much, much better with a structured day, even my workaholic husband who rarely goofs off. When he doesn't have an external schedule, it is a lot harder for him to just focus. And I think people who have depressive tendencies tend to do much harder without schedules. In fact a lot of the time that is what therapists of mine have focused on: setting a particular hour to wake up, a particular number of hours to goof off, when to take a walk, when to brush my teeth, &c. tl;dr I don't think it says bad thing about you, or your brain, or your capacity as a parent if you feel better with a job and an external structure - I think that's honestly just human.

Also, at some point, Bebe E is going to grow up, and move out, and he will no longer be anyone's job, except his own. Yeah, that is a looooong way away, and there might be extenuating circumstances that means he doesn't move out right when he's 18 or he might come back for a while later or whatever, but at some point he will be "free and flying". And I think it will honestly be just good for him if he has two adults modeling happiness at work, or even just going out and being _able_ to work.

Mr. E says, of course, that whether or not it says bad things, it IS the case that historically when I am unemployed I slide into depression, so maybe suck it up and deal with reality. I like that guy.

Mr E is very wise, but we knew that. - I mean that's one reason why they have the suck-ass Occupational Therapy in hospitals: ideally it's supposed to teach the patients, yes, you can do something, you can accomplish something here even if it sucks, altho all too often yeah it's just a stupid time-filler. (Also ahahaha all this is coming from someone unable to work, which is sorta hilarious. But take it from me! Not working can fuck you up!)

Sometimes it feels like the fact that I'm pretty sure I'd be sullenly unhappy as a stay-at-home mom in the suburbs is not a good enough reason not to do it.

I have sullenly unhappy moments, as I expect most parents of all work statuses do, and I am much less good a mom during those times. So even if my own happiness weren't enough (which it totally is, to the point where I have literally never considered leaving my job), the good of my kids would keep me from deliberately choosing a path of sullen unhappiness.

This this this

Yep, that.

My experience is just the opposite. By sheer virtue of being in (a) academia (where taking three years off of work means you probably have to move when you're ready to work again), (b) a community college (and thus a lower prestige level of academia), and (c) a composition teacher (a field that tends to attract women for reasons that are reeeeeeally bound up in lots of prestige and patriarchy issues), I am surrounded by working mothers. So I have lots of examples of mothers who not only work full time, but like me, placed their children in daycare very, very early.* There are a few who manage to postpone or avoid daycare because the fathers are also academics or similar fields with flexible schedules, but mostly, we're all kind of in the same boat. And meanwhile, very few of the dads make enough for their wives to stay home full time.

So, actually, the stay-at-home mom is something of a rarity in my social circle. Friends without kids, those I got, but most of the moms I know locally work outside the home. This works out nicely in the sense that I have friends who share my experience. OTOH, since my schedule is flexible, and my friends like

lydiabell work a regular work week, I am often sad that she can't, say, join us with her little girl to go see Brave. Nor, to be blunt, do I have much in the way of emergency support. I have

wa and her mother, but they have their own obligations, and it has at times gotten kind of scary.

*Hey, it lowers their chances of getting leukemia! Who knew?

Yeah, we don't have a huge amount of real local emergency support either. So deeply grateful for the local kid-friendly friends we do have, though! And another good and close friend is about to become a parent - there has been much squeeing!

I find it interesting that I don't actually think I'm less good of a mom when I'm unhappy. Well, the confounding factor is that I think mostly I've been unhappy around him (past the first terrible three or four weeks) when I've been physically sick, and probably a bit of less of a good mom then yes, but it feels like it was because of the illness.

That's awesome. When I'm getting stressed out about not being able to cope with everything, I get uncharitable and short-tempered and withdrawn.

Be fair, my kid is so small at this point all he really needs from me is to be changed and wiped and fed and held and looked at. If I have the energy to talk or sing that is bonus, but clearly not required.

/via network

I don't have, and aren't anticipating having, kids, but I do know for a fact that if my mother hadn't gone back to work after having me and Sibling, she probably would have either gone bugfuck insane, or done so much volunteering outside the house it would've functionally been the same as having a full time job anyway. Being a homemaker just doesn't work for some people; there's nothing wrong with that.

What was it like for you having a working mom?

My mom was stay-at-home, and I used to wish she'd get a job and get out of my hair - but, in retrospect, maybe not for the best reasons. :D ("Finally! A chance to work on my stolen lipstick murals!")

Heh, geeze, I dunno. I guess not too different; she was almost always around when I wasn't in school anyway - sometimes we had to stay in after school care, when we were little but that was usually pretty fun - we knew people, they had activities and (!! computer games! :O, even before we owned a computer at home, heh). Once we were old enough to be home alone we'd often be home for an hour or two before anyone else, but otherwise she'd be around. And if Something Happened and she needed to come pick us up from school or whatever, she was able to do that. It did mean that in some holidays we had to go stay with our grandparents during the day, but that was hardly the worst thing ever, and they lived close.

Basically for my family situation it was just fine!

That is encouraging! Thank you.

^^ Not a problem!

The way it's set up, you're going to get blamed for anything that goes wrong with the kid anyway, regardless of whether or not you were happy at the time. Hahahaha what an awesome joke society is playing!

I'm at home with my kids, and look: I love my kids, but i didn't start out at home because I wanted to. I did not intend to stay home with kids, and I don't like it. (I got laid off while we were trying for the first, and I didn't find a new job before he was born, so we defaulted to this and now I feel like I gave him my time and should do it for the second kid too and and and.)

So, from the perspective of someone who did not want to be home with kids and who misses working, don't do it to yourself. It doesn't matter how much I love my kids and how much I like being there for them and the undeniable freedoms one gets from having one's job include the house running crap that usually gets shunted into second-shift or not done at all...yes, those are all benefits, but people are still going to blame you for every fucking thing that goes wrong and you get to be unhappy on top of all of it. And I think happy parents are important to children. Right now I am working hard to not parent from a position of depression and anxiety, when all the chemicals in my brain are on the side of wrong.

Like. The feminine mystique still exists, is what I am saying, and it's just as fucking horrible as it ever was and if you know that it'll make you unhappy to go there....I just think happiness is valuable, to you and to your kid and your relationships with everybody and.

This long disjointed note is just to say, "in your head" is a totally valid reason, ok. Um. (hi let me show you my damage)

Yes, all of this.

It's like, to be sure, there are perks and enjoyment to be had as a full-time parent, but that doesn't mean that it's for everyone. I dunno about you but I wind up with so much more guilt as a SAHP than I think I would if I were working, because I feel like I should be lucky to be able to do the full-time parenting thing, and who complains about being able to lounge around in pjs all day anyway? (People who've spent two or three hours trying to convince the smalls to change into something other than pjs so they can leave the house, that's who.)

Right? The pajamas thing kills me. Oh it must be so awesome to be able to wear pjs all day -- no, those are BAD days, the days when you wear pjs all day, because the kids are too crazed or too much is going on or whatever, _you didn't have time to shower and put on real clothes_.

....ah ha ha, that sounds like when I'm too depressed to get dressed. "The life of Riley* in your pajamas!" No, choosing another black T-shirt from the closet is too complicated.

*who he?

Thank you so much.

Yeah, it's scary and yet kind of freeing (in a nihilistic way) to realize how much of what we end up doing is just what happens, and not what we plan. That is something I really get from reading history - there's so much "And then there was a long campaign that nearly united the warring states; but then the general suddenly got the flu and died and his successors turned to political infighting and they ended up not going there after all..."

Wishing you all the strength with your brain chemicals. :/ That stuff sucks.

I sometimes really _feel_ the saying "life is what happens when you are making other plans", you know?

Brain chemicals do suck. My sitch is complicated by breastfeeding, so it might just be "come back when you wean the kid" at my appointment next week, who knows.

(also argh, sorry for all the tl;dr!)

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under pressure

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Icon used ironically

Re: Icon used ironically

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