Still Working Toward Equality

Growing up I learned, as many of us do, about the hardships of different groups in history.  We spent hours studying slavery, the holocaust and communism.  But the suffragist movement got a paragraph or two.  At least we learned that women did get the vote.  For some reason the struggles that women faced and continue to face aren't worth much discussion in the class room.

A few weeks ago my daughter asked me who the first female President was.  I was sad to tell her that there hasn't been one, but was proud to hear her emphatic, "Why not?".  I couldn't really answer that.  I've heard many opinions.  The most upsetting was that there hadn't been a 'serious' female candidate.  I hope the commentator meant a female who did not have enough clout and popularity to make a 'serious' run for the Presidency and not that any of the women who have run weren't good enough.  One could argue that Barack Obama was not a 'serious' contender in 2008 because of his lack of experience, but he was elected.  Countries like Brazil, Denmark, Kosovo, Pakistan and South Korea have had female leaders, so why not the US?

When I was younger I was naive enough to think that sexism was dead in the US.  I believed that other than a few in the "older" generation, women were treated equal to men.  The older I've gotten the more I see it's not true.  Living in The South has further opened my eyes.  I will accept an old man (we're talking 75 and up) calling me sweetie or little lady, but anyone my dad's age or younger will get a full blown Arizona tongue lashing.  It happened to me at dealership service center and I got right back in my car and left.  When my husband and I went to buy me a car, I did all the talking, was in charge of all the money and they still put the car in HIS name.  HIS name.. not mine.  At the time, I was working and could by the car on my own.  It was obviously for me and yet they put it in the man's name.  Where I'm from they would have put it in my name and then maybe asked if I wanted my husband's.  It even happened with our lender for our home mortgage.  My name is on that, but the first line includes my husband's name and I am referred to as wife.  That's right.  I don't have a name, I am 'wife'.  

I think women have made a strong case to be treated equally.  It is hard to believe women are still considered, by some, to be fragile, docile and needy.  There are women astronauts, firemen, policemen, congresswomen, plumbers and contractors.

Of course we don't do ourselves any favors by posing nude in magazines and doing reality shows where we are portrayed as self-absorbed, superficial and materialistic.  What we seem to miss is the strong, smart role models.  I know those women exist; we don't give them the same attention.  I guess they aren't interesting.  If women are strong and smart, they are seen as mean or bitchy.  

When I worked as a researcher there were many female scientists.  The majority were graduate students and post docs, with few female professors.  The majority (>75%) of principle investigators were men.  The few female PIs were generally regarded as mean, tough and difficult to work with.  I worked with many of them and did not find any of the female PIs to be more demanding than the men.  I think people take criticism from a woman more personally than they do a man and therefore view a female authority figure as bitchy.  When in fact, they are just doing their job.

This year, more women received doctorates than men for the first time in history.  And yet, this was the first Winter Olympics with women's ski jumping.  Apparently it was not believed women could provide Olympic level competition!!  Seriously!  It's a scary event, but it's sliding down a long slide on skis and landing safely.  Women can do that.

Now, I'm not a feminist.  My husband is the head of our home.  I love a statement by Candace Cameron-Bure where she explained the success in her marriage was due to submitting to her husband.  Now, she in no way meant that her husband was her boss and said that it's difficult to make any relationship work with two strong leaders.  She's absolutely right.  I once worked at a retail store where two managers were battling for supremacy.  All that resulted was confused cashiers and a messy store.  When both the husband and wife try to be the leader, the result tends to be a lot of fighting.  That does not mean the husband should be a dictator.  A good leader listens to people and considers their thoughts and feelings.

The truth is we won't truly be equal until we get to a place where a woman CEO is no longer introduced as a woman, but just as the CEO.  

I'm So Boring!

I'm busy all day, but do nothing interesting.  There's nothing fun in my life.  I clean, cook and play with the kids.  That's it.  It's not that I want to go back to work.  I just want to be interesting.  Diapers, tantrums and homework issues don't even entertain me and it's my life!

People ask me, "What's new?".  My answer.... "nothing."  Every once in a while I've got a new sick kid saga to share, but that's it.  I have nothing going on.  I try to keep the kids healthy and where they need to be.  Keeps me busy, but not very exciting.  

I don't want extra drama or catastrophes, but SOMETHING interesting, like painting my house.  I would love to get some rooms painted.  It's been so cold we don't do anything outside.  I haven't even been out doing yard work.  I have shied away from putting our youngest in a Mom's Day Out program because I feel silly putting my child in a "daycare" situation just so I can do something.  I know that's why they are there and I'm starting to think I may need to take advantage of it.  While I have all day to do whatever, I'm still very limited.  It has to be appropriate for a 2 year old and not happen during the all important nap hours.

My husband travels so much that it's very difficult to join groups.  I can't plan anything until I am 100% sure he'll be in town.  Sometimes that's not until the week of.  I never know when I'm going to need a babysitter.  Even when I do get a babysitter, it can be difficult to get out.  For example, I recently had a dinner planned with some friends from my old work.  I had a sitter lined up and then.... the kids got sick!  Not crazy sick, but they had croup.  Thankfully, my friend was going to watch the kids for me and she agreed to watch the kids anyway.  That's very rare.  She is also a SAHM with three kids and was willing to stay with my sickly kids at the risk of infecting her own, so I could have a night out.  Now that's a friend!

I have a few ideas to get myself out of this rut.  I'm thinking of joining a mommy and me gymnastics class.  It could be fun for both of us.  Also, I have fallen behind on the toddler's baby book, so I think I'm going to try to work on that.  Although the idea of getting out glue, tape, scissors, paper, etc to be able to work on it for about 15 minutes before I have to put it all away does not sound fun.  At least it's an activity!

I have got to get out more!

Grieving the Dream

In a few months I am going to turn 35.  That is such a grown up number.  There's no denying it; I am a grown up.  I have three kids, a mortgage and am approaching middle age (35x2=70).  I know that's a ridiculous thing to say, but that's how I feel.  I am normally a very optimistic person, but right now instead of feeling my life is half started, I feel it's half over.  I feel too old to achieve any of the dreams I have left from my younger years.  

My dreams of being a rock star died at age 10 when I realized you had to be able to sing.  I knew I wasn't going to be a tennis pro when I was 16 and discovered that professional players began playing when they were 6.  My dream of being a medical doctor died when I saw the MCAT (That was just pure laziness.  It's a 5.5 hour test!  Who wants to do that?!).

When those dreams faded away, I wasn't hurt.  I didn't really want to do any those things.  They would have been fun adventures.  That's what I want; the adventure.  Doing something different and rare sounds wonderful.

Now "adventure" seems like nothing but an adolescent fantasy.  I stay home with three kids.  That's what I do.  I can't have crazy, spontaneous adventures because babysitters are expensive and almost impossible to get last minute.  It's difficult to have hobbies when I'm interrupted every 5 minutes.  I know the kids will eventually grow up and I'll get some freedom back, but then I'll be too old.  Again, I know that's a ridiculous thing to say, but it's how I FEEL.  It's over.  The days when a fantasy could possibly come true are gone.

Even though I know it's ludicrous, the idea that there is no chance for me to experience anything fun and crazy anymore is very depressing.  I can't shake it.  I try to focus on the dreams that have come true.  More than anything I wanted to have a loving marriage and beautiful children.  That has happened.  And I wouldn't trade them for anything.

But is it really too much to ask for the CIA to need my help tracking a deadly virus that only I have the ability to stop?  Or that I end up doing a segment on "The Chew" because my food is so amazing everyone wants to know how I do it.  I mean really.  It's not going to happen, but it would be so COOL!

Imagination Overload

Like most kids, my children have active fantasy lives.  They pretend ALL the time.  Sometimes it is really sweet, sometimes a little quirky and sometimes down right silly.  

Our oldest loves to play house, school and library.  She also likes to pretend to work.  She's always writing in notebooks or on scratch pieces of paper and always looks busy.  Every once in a while I take a peek in those notebooks and find all kinds of things.  Beautiful pictures of fairies and ponies, cute little poems or her thoughts.  Occasionally I find some useful information like, "I like Collin," or "I hope Santa brings me a bike."  But sometimes I find other things, like a drawing of her brother where he has been crossed out and "No Boys Allowed" is written beneath it.  Those notebooks are very eye opening.

Our littlest loves to play with her baby doll.  She takes that thing everywhere and loves to take her around the house for walks in the baby stroller.  The other night I was checking on her before going to bed and to my surprise she wasn't asleep.  Instead, I watched as she pretended to change her baby's diaper, gave her a kiss and tucked her into bed.  So sweet, I smile just thinking about it.  And then I noticed that she took the changing pad off her changing table, which is about 2 feet from her crib, and put it in her crib to use for her baby.  I still have not figured out how she managed to do that... hmmmm.

My son and I were playing with his cars in his room the other day and he started telling me all their "super powers".  He is borderline obsessed with super heroes these days, but not with specific heroes, more like specific powers.  Lightning McQueen had super speed, second Lightning McQueen had super strength, and Francesco Berrrrrrnoulli had the best power of all.  He had the power of super poop!  That's right super poop.  He could poop on anything to stop it, squash it, or move it.

A child's imagination is like a box of chocolates... you never know what you're going to get.

The Importance of Feeling Important

Yesterday, I was having a rough day.  I was feeling left out of church, left out of friend's lives and just plain left out of life.  I wasn't feeling important.  I know I'm needed at home, but I don't always feel needed.  My kids are too young to really appreciate what I do for them and what I've sacrificed to make our home life better.  Therefore, I don't feel overly important at home.  That used to be OK because I was important at work.  Man, it felt great to be needed; to have people running up to me asking for advise or help with a project.  I was important.

After talking all this over with my husband, I got to go to the grocery store by myself.  I love doing that.  I can actually look for better deals and use my coupons to their fullest value.  It's awesome.  It also gave me time to really think about my need to feel important.  I thought about people needing my help and being thanked for my help.  What I thought very little about was the actual helping part.  I enjoy that part.  I'm a "Martha".  If there's a task to be done, I'm your girl.  But what I finally realized is that I have plenty of that part at home with my family to keep me busy.  What my ego needed was people realizing they need me.  And when I thought of it that way,  I felt incredibly stupid and selfish.

As I was driving  home from the grocery store all I wanted to do was play with my kids.  I needed to make them feel important.  They are why I stay home and I want them to know I happily and without any regrets choose them over anything else.  Once I got the groceries put away, I joined my kids out on the trampoline.  It was so much fun!  I really have terrific, fun, outgoing kids.  And my husband and I are very lucky.

I must stress, however, that a woman who has had 3 children should NEVER, EVER, NEVER jump on a trampoline without leak guard protection!

Do They Believe Me

I sometimes wonder if people believe me.  I know I'm prone to exaggeration, but on the important things, I don't lie.  When my children ask me a question, (with the exception of SC, EB, and TF questions of existence), I tell them the truth.  I learned a long, long time ago that there is no point in lying.  Some one ALWAYS finds out.  But what do you do when what really happened sounds like a lie?

When my oldest was 2 she was hit in the head by a flying toy truck at daycare.  The toy truck was thrown by a boy sitting about 3 feet from her and was thrown with enough force that she immediately had a bump the size of a half dollar (no exaggeration, I have pictures) which was quickly accompanied by a bruise.  Later that night she exhibited some strange behavior, so naturally we ran our first born daughter to the ER.  I think we spent more time defending what happened then she did being checked out.  Five hours later she was fine and the staff was satisfied that we did not neglect or beat our daughter.

Today, I took my son to school after a long winter absence made longer by RIDICULOUSLY cold weather.  You can imagine that I was not thrilled to be dropping of a boy with a black eye. 

It's not super bad, but it's definitely a black eye and it's moved to that lovely green and yellow phase.  His teacher noticed it immediately and asked how it happened and I had to tell her.  The truth is, his 20 month old sister head butted him.  She gave me that polite, "Sure, that's what happened look", (at least that's what I thought she was thinking), and went back to getting everyone ready to learn.

Post-SAHM Depression

I believe there is a depression, similar to postpartum depression that happens to new SAHMS.  I always thought it was strange that in the days before my son was born I was extra emotional and couldn't let go of our daughter.  I would just grab her up, give her a big hug and cry a little.  Turns out, I was grieving the loss of our life as we knew it.  We spent nearly four years with just the three of us and it was about to change forever.  That life, a life I had loved and grown very comfortable in, was going to be gone as soon as my son was born.  The same thing happened right before our youngest was born.  That grief was completely gone however, as soon as the babies arrived and I was elated to finally meet them.

The grief I felt after losing my job, however, still lingers.  It's not terrible and only creeps up every once in a while, like when a friend gets a promotion, my husband publishes a book chapter or a journal article in a crazy awesome journal, or when my children say my husband must be smarter than me because he works and I, to quote my oldest, " just, you know."  For the record, my husband is smarter than me, but that's not the point.  I left a life where I felt large and in charge to start a life where I often feel like the servant.

Some friends of mine have recently become SAHMs and are experiencing emotions similar to the ones I felt almost 2 years ago.  There truly is a grieving process that happens when your life is completely changed, even if you choose that change.  The problem I found is that it could easily slip into a depression; especially if the change is not necessarily your choice.  I had a hard time pulling myself out of my own little pity party.  The world just doesn't put much stock in a woman staying home.  There are some who would say a SAHM is wasting her potential by not working.  Almost 2 years into this gig and I can tell you that's total hogwash.

I am becoming a much better version of myself.  I have become more patient, more caring and have found the value in just sitting with my children and really talking to them.  All of that has made us a much better and closer family.  I don't know that I would have found that if I was still working.  There would be too much to do.  I don't want to fit my children into my life, I want them to be my life.

It's hard adjusting to being a SAHM after being in the workplace.  The opinions of others and your opinion of yourself can really affect how you feel; a lot of times for the worse.  It's important to remember why you became a SAHM in the first place so when you're watching your 20 month old hit her older brother in the head with a plastic phone, you can smile through the screams and the tears and be proud that you are doing what is right for you and your family.