You see the issue with my job is much the same as with any business. There's that common saying in business, "If you stay still, you die." It's true of parenting too. The best days are invariably where you took the initiative and planned an activity in advance - something achievable, rewarding and fun. I didn't do that today and so I paid the price. The price is bored kids and the inability to organize a single thought in your head because there's a bored child shouting, pulling at you or trying to use the refrigerator shelves as a ladder.
If you add to the mild nightmare of an unprepared day, a distinct lack of sleep and a very minor household stocking issue, you start to find yourself thinking maybe a job wouldn't be such a bad idea. We were out of dishwasher tablet things. Not a huge oversight, but a very visible one as the dirty dishes started to stack up.
So when Lynn took a break from writing, I sneaked out alone to our local supermarket. I was just standing, staring at where the dishwasher tablet things should be, thinking I must be going mad cause they don't have any either, when this older lady loudly laughed at me. Whilst steering her cart past me she chortled, "Can't you choose sweety?" Now that might be funny, really it might. However, it felt pretty sexist to me and she was lucky that I spend my days looking after my boys and have almost completely lost the art of the quick, incisive retort.
I supposed that I shouldn't be troubling my pretty little head with the tricky choices of modern house management. I should get myself back into the kitchen, like a proper little hubby. So I got the tablet things elsewhere and went home and made home-made pizza.... which I burnt.
Perhaps I'm paying for every sexist joke that I might have ever sniggered at - I'm clearly a no-good male chauvinist pig.
I think you are being way too hard on yourself! Everyone has crap days like that. Try the Scarlett O'Hara philosophy: "Tomorrow is another day." She was a dope (Ashley Hamilton over Rhett Butler? I mean, really!) - but she had this sentiment right. :)
ReplyDeleteDespite the racket and chaos that comes with raising kids, there are moments where you feel completely lost.
ReplyDeleteThanks for blogging your Adventures in Parenting, Mark. Laughing at your day makes it possible for me to eventually laugh at mine. Or maybe it's the everyone-is-finally-tucked-in-bed adult beverages....
Keep posting. You're doing splendidly!
As a woman who has somehow frequently fallen into mostly-male occupations, I know this feeling of sexist treatment in stores. Fry's can be a lot of fun for me, for example. [Note to non-California readers: Fry's is a chain of giant electronics stores that in some ways defy explanation.] Sometimes if I'm pondering an item I'll get some unsolicited advice from a nearby male customer who clearly assumes I know zero about what I'm looking at. ("Go with Brand X - it's better.") Generally I'll respond by asking him the actual question that's in my mind, which most often is a lot more sophisticated than his knowledge of the item. This has the advantage of being polite - after all, the guy probably didn't mean to be sexist - while still putting an end to the sexist assumptions. But if by chance he's actually knowledgeable and has some insight into my question - jackpot!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if any of this applies to people like Dame Dish Detergent, who seems like maybe she decided to take out every sexist comment she'd ever received on you (indecisiveness usually being applied to women in the chauvinist joke-a-rama.) And I hope this doesn't sound like unsolicited advice, which I sometimes have a tendency to give... Ohhhh... I think I'm taking out years of sexist unsolicited advice on innocent male bloggers! Thanks Dr. Freud!