a liberated woman, that's me

Henry has conjunctivitis, so I stayed home with him one day this week. This is the kind of day when I get really annoyed about my role as a mother with a career. I consider myself a feminist, and let me tell you nothing bothers me more than a sexist man, the stereotypes we force on our young girls (princesses, I assure you, are rarely strong and independent women), or discrimination against women in the workplace. But in some ways, the feminist movement screwed us over.

A day like this one, when I have to stay home with a sick child, reminds me of all my responsibilities. I mean, why am I the one to stay home with the sick child? Why wouldn't my husband? When women wanted equality, we really wanted more to do I guess. We wanted to have it all! And we got it! Yay! We can have professional careers! And we still do all the other stuff too! We can take care of the kids! We can clean the house! We can cook gourmet meals! We can garden and decorate and do crafts we found on the internet, and read magazines about how to make our lives even more freaking perfect! And THEN, we commiserate over how difficult our lives are, and how we can't find balance, and what martyrs we are for our families. Now that we do it all, we deserve special recognition, don't we? Aren't we special, we liberated women?

We're just living the dream.

Did anyone notice this? That when we women signed up for equal rights and equality in the working world, there was no men's movement for equal rights in the home, was there? Did we not notice that there weren't any men clamoring to stay home and keep house and take care of the kids? Did we not notice that no one else was going to pick up the slack? When our children are sick, guess what? We're the ones who have to call out and stay home with them. (And I realize there are fathers who would stay home, but they are an exception.) Who stays home with the sick kids? Who rearranges their work schedules to fit in appointments for the children and make sure they get where they need to go? Who does the shopping, plans the meals, cooks dinner and then cleans up every night? Who packs all the lunches? Who gets up before everyone else, puts in a full day of work, and then cleans and folds laundry and packs lunches after the kids are in bed? It's not Daddy. At least not at my house.

Here I go again. Fishing for some sort of Super Mom award. Look at me and how hard my life is, boo hoo.

So I play "stay-at-home-mom" for a day, kicking myself for the decisions we've made. This was going to be the day I got caught up on the mountain of office tasks piling up for me at work, and instead of getting my work done I was home. This means I now have a mountain of work to be done on my own time at home. When do I have that time, you ask? Never. I never have that time. Late at night, or 5 am sometimes. It's not ideal. This morning when I realized I had to stay home, I told Chris I wanted to get some work done before he left with Celia. Did that happen? Of course not. I had to get the kids ready. Chris wasn't dressed for work because he refuses to get up early and get ready for the day like an adult. (I'm not bitter about that. We decided we only wanted two children. He has two. I have three.) I barely squeezed in two phone calls to cancel clients. The demands of my career are just as rigorous as anyone else's. I work fewer hours because I am part time, but that doesn't make my job any less demanding or the expectations any lower. In fact, the expectation is higher because I'm supposed to do it all in less time. I am a professional woman! My career is just as important as a man's! I am liberated! I feel so freeeeeeeeeee! 

Except my career isn't as important as a man's. If it were, Chris would stay home with the kids when they're sick. But he can't do that. He can't possibly use the sick time he's entitled to, to take a day off once in a while. He might miss an important meeting. He might have to work late that day. I don't even get paid for my days off. So it isn't completely about money, you see. It's about whose career is more important. So if my career isn't important, what the hell am I doing pretending to have one?

After reading all this, you probably think I'm miserable person. I'm really not. I love my husband and my children. I'm happy to have them. I like my job. I like our house. I like to garden and cook and clean and look on the internet at crafts somebody else did (I'm not so crafty, as it turns out). And I certainly don't think or worry about this every day. But I simply can't do all these things all at once without making myself crazy. Am I glad that I have an expensive graduate degree and got to experience a professional career? Yes. Do I really like my job? Yes. Am I happy we have children? Would I like to play the traditional role of caring for them and the house? Yes. But, WOMEN! LISTEN TO ME! We are making ourselves CRAZY, women! What is wrong with us? We create these expectations for our kind; these crazy unrealistic expectations, and then spend our lives feeling all freaked out that we can't do the impossible. Then we commiserate with each other about how hard it is, and how we don't get any recognition for our self-inflicted martyrdom.

There could be so many paths to take next with this. The history of the feminist movement, natural and culturally imposed gender roles, my marriage, my own options for a saner existence and how I could have made (and still could make) different choices, the way my job is less important because I make less money because I work in a field that is prominently female because women are more drawn to social service work which is not something our society values... But for now, let's leave it at this. Thanks for reading. I feel so.... liberated.