Serving to Live

Obama has talked a lot about service. Cynics say he’s trying to align himself with JFK (presumably minus the brains-being-blown-out part) and others say he’s just being practical – the mess is so big that it just can’t be cleaned without everyone mucking in. My money’s on a little of both.

I’ve talked about service a lot lately too. Well, I’ve talked to myself about it. I’ve been thinking about the difference between service and submission, and the different levels of respect we give to various types of service.

Being a mother (and to a lesser degree, being a wife) is all about service. A mother – especially an attachment-parenting type mother – is available to serve her offspring twenty-four hours a day. I read something recently that described breastfeeding as the most selfless act of all and I’m not sure if it is entirely selfless but it is certainly all about the giving.

Personally, I have a great deal of ambivalence towards the level of service involved in mothering. It brings joy and untold rewards, that is true. And perhaps more than that: it’s necessary. In my mind, choosing to have a child means choosing to look after that child in the best possible way – and that means a little selflessness. But without making the required sacrifices that parenthood brings, what would be the point? You won’t hear me talking along those lines after a 4am wake-up-call. If I say anything at all beyond ‘arrrrggggnnngggffffthhhh’ it’ll be something with four letters. But still – I get up. Not responding when I’m needed is unthinkable. A non-0ption.

As a society we have a truckload of ambivalence about this service stuff too. Anyone pregnant with her first child knows this first-hand – all of a sudden, her needs are subjugated to those of her foetus. And should she dare to drink a glass or wine or eat a rare steak in a restaurant she’s likely to draw everything from furtive whispers to open criticism to flat refusal from wait staff. And all this after spending an afternoon having all and sundry either touch her abdomen without asking, comment on her size, tell her eye-watering tales of their own episiotomy scar or offer parenting advice: invariably along the lines of ‘don’t ever let your baby cry, it will get brain damage’ or ‘don’t spoil it – crying is good exercise for babies’. She is expected to take all of this with serene grace because she’s just so lucky to be a host organism and no longer requires a brain of her own.

But she better not get too complacent. Because when that baby is outta there, being a host organism is no longer good enough. Oh no. She needs ‘me time’! Preferably at the gym or the beautician so that she can return to her ‘pre-baby’ self as soon as possible. And she’d better learn how to avoid letting her baby manipulate her – because babies need to be trained not to cry, since their crying is inconvenient and interrupts mummy and daddy time. Or, perhaps she needs to learn how to respond to every sound her baby makes and prevent any crying at all – which means holding her infant 24 hours a day. Which shouldn’t be a problem, since she can use a sling to help her do laundry and make dinner.

In reality what most of us strive for is a happy medium between disappearing into baby-service altogether and not spending enough time loving our children because we’re distracted by our own adult lives. But of course there is no such thing as a happy medium – just a host of compromises which usually require one person in the family to have their needs put aside at any given time. And a Darwinian battle for ascendency to avoid being the family member in that default position.

Anyway, all of this is not really what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say is that our valuing of individuality, ambition, and power detracts from the value of service. As a mother and a feminist, I believe – I need to believe – that spending this time in service of my family is not subjugation because although it is not paid work, it is vital and valuable work. It is work I can be proud of.

I remember a conversation with a fellow feminist and mother, back when I was pregnant, about cloth nappies.** My friend had said that the very thought of having to wash and dry nappies on top of all the other work involved in raising her two wonderfully active boys was enough to scare the bejeezus out of her and I totally sympathised. In a writing class I went to that afternoon, I scribbled ‘will drudgery make me a drudge?’ It was a real fear and one that still grips me sometimes.

But I resist it. Because I know that being the mother my daughter needs, the mother I never had, is as important to me as it is to her.

I think that when we conflate service of this kind with submission – to the patriarchy, to a stereotype, whatever – we devalue the work that so many women do.

And what is so wrong with service anyway? Serving one’s country in war is considered one of the most honourable and noble tasks. Serving the community as a volunteer – aid worker, tuck shop lady, firefighter – is seen at the least as a worthy contribution, if not some kind of higher calling. And the word doula comes from the Greek word for servant. Many women who do birthwork talk of themselves as birth servants – and so they are. Their role is to support the mother: no more and certainly no less. To give such support is an honour and it requires skill and the ability to put one’s own needs and opinions aside. 

It’s refreshing to hear the leader of a country known for individualism and greed talk about the value of community service. I hope his words have some impact and encourage a new spirit of volunteerism. I also hope that those of us who care for others in our family every single day without economic reward, will start to feel as though that work – that service – is precious, skilled, valuable and worthy of acknowledgement by other feminists. And everyone.

 

** Incidentally, I did go ahead with the cloth nappies. But it’s my husband who usually washes and dries and folds them, after he’s gotten home from his paid work and played with our daughter for a while. Because serving a child and a family and a household is men’s work too. Of course.

Dead letters

Every few weeks or so, I write an email to my brother. Now I know you’re probably sitting there chewing on a jam fancy and sipping a cup of tea hoping against hope that something interesting will give you an excuse to stay away from the real world a bit longer and are now sarcastically saying to yourself well whoopdedoo… how mundane. But before you take another bite of your jam fancy and go looking for some interesting boob shots (my advice: avoid Facebook), let me tell assure you that me writing an email to my brother is actually news. Well, to me.

You see, he doesn’t read them.

At least, I don’t think he does.

I imagine them flickering into his inbox and being deleted with a thud. Dead letters.

It’s a long story, but no longer or uglier than your average family dysfunction saga. Suffice to say, he doesn’t talk to me. And it’s not my fault. It’s our mother’s.

No, really.

Anyway, I find it intensely difficult to write those emails. I have to ask myself if I’m doing it out of some perversity but if that were it, I’m sure there’s more rewarding way to be a masochist. It’s not about pain. It’s about honouring what I say and what I feel, even if it makes me or others uncomfortable. A lesson I’m trying to learn.

I’ve only been able to do this for a relatively short time because it was only last year that I finally got hold of an email address for him, after ten years of silence. I was more or less a child when we last spoke. Now, I’m finding that there is another difficulty in this one-sided correspondence and it has nothing to do with trauma or baggage.

Carrying on a conversation when you’re not sure if the other person is listening actually requires courage and not a little skill. I have new found respect for people who talk to themselves. And I don’t mean just muttering in the supermarket about what was left off the list or what will happen to Little Johnny when you get home – I mean the ones who vocalise all day long. What stamina they must have! How fascinating they must believe themselves to be!

The thing is, I have nothing to talk about. The only people who are up to the task of feigning interest in my days filled with dribble and failing dismally at ‘keeping house’ and breastfeeding highs are lows are other people with children. My brother was always pretty unimpressed by babies and as a gay man it seems the odds are against him having any. Although in truth I hold a secret hope that one day he’ll reply to say that he and the talented and beautiful lover I have imagined for him are adopting a child and could I possibly share with them my vast knowledge of modern cloth nappies. Or something like that. And I suppose that’s what all this comes down to, isn’t it? Hope.

Writing a blog is hopeful. It says I have something to say and it says I think what I have to say is worth someone else’s time to read. Or maybe it just says something about our net-obsessed world and our insatiable desire for making the private public, in a fashion. Whatever it is, I enjoy it. It doesn’t feel in the least masochistic. (At least, not for me. I can’t speak for you, dear reader…)

If only all writing was so easy.

Dirty shame

I am a shocking shirker of housework. Now that I spend most of my time in our home, I need to go to great trouble to avoid having too much available time or I’ll be forced to notice how much mess we’ve got going on. My brain works something like ‘Gee, when Bean commando crawls her tummy gets pretty dirty. Those floors have got to need cleaning. Oooh, a blog! I could start one of those. I MUST start one of those. What a terrible shame I’ll no longer have time for mopping.’

Don’t think I don’t feel guilty though.

No matter what modern euphemism you use, I’m still a housewife. And I’m not a very good one. This tends to make me feel inadequate and insecure which, given my general opinion on whether women should do more housework (no) and whether women should be judged on their ability to ‘keep house’ (absolutely not, not ever, not even for half a second during a blue moon in a Halley’s comet year) is a little silly.

So what’s with the pressure? It’s certainly not coming from my husband. He’s a domestic god, bless him, and even washes most of the Bean’s nappies. Cooking generally falls to me but I expect (and receive) help. When I expressed a half-hearted intention to do dishes while he was out last night he more or less forbade me to, promising to do them himself tomorrow when I’m having some time off. Naturally, he didn’t need to offer twice.

I can only conclude from this that the Fireman has either resigned himself to my household incompetence and realised that it’s better for all concerned if he takes charge from time to time, or he genuinely believes that the contributions I make in mothering our daughter and in being my delightful self are inherently valuable and if he doesn’t have to clean his own socks as well as make money to buy them it’s just a bonus. I actually believe it’s the latter. Go accidental male feminism!

It’s me who has the problem.

My mother couldn’t cook and she couldn’t sew. Her one attempt at knitting resulted in a jumper that wouldn’t even fit over my head. I realise now that the fact she attempted it probably meant she was trying to conform to the expectations of the day – expectations that she was too domestically clueless to meet.

She was also pretty incompetent as far as mothers go.

I wonder sometimes if my anxiety about ‘not being a good wife’ stems from my fear of emulating my own mother. Perhaps I unconsciously equate her failure to fulfil the expected gender role of the time with her failure to love me adequately. I know that I don’t mind at all that she went back to work and had things been different in my family I may have even felt a little proud that she couldn’t be arsed making scones and playing Stepford wife with her friends. But is failing to nourish me bodily (the woman thought a beetroot sandwich was a great dinner) a symptom of her failure to put her family before her own whims? And is my judgment of her behaviour based on outdated notions of what mothers ought to be anyway?

A question I can answer, when I’m being rational, is whether my own daughter’s experience of her mother will resemble mine. Of course, no. I know that already she has learned to trust that her mummy’s love is stable and constant and boundless. There is no chance of me letting her down – I’m in this for the long haul. When she is approaching thirty herself she won’t turn to me and say ‘Gee mum, you could have cleaned those floors once in a while. My poor tumtum was always filthy after crawling around. By the way, did you see that Oprah today, the one about not comfort eating? Her new zimmerframe is pretty neat.’  Instead, if I’m really lucky, she might remember having a mum who was reliable and warm and one day give me a Mother’s Day card with a particularly nice Hallmark message in it. For now she only cares about boo boo and cuddles and actually likes dirt, and as she gets older it’s my time that she’ll want more than beautifully ironed clothes. Right?

Keeping up appearances isn’t a concern to anyone in this house but me. It’s me who fears that my mother-in-law snitches and snipes about my poor housekeeping and it’s me who runs around like a mad thing before guests arrive in a vain attempt to channel Martha Stewart. Sure, our culture still demands wife-work and the second shift is alive and well. But I have an opportunity in my own life to seriously screw patriarchal expectations at grass-roots/mouldy tile level. It’s a good thing if enough housecleaning gets done to keep us comfortable but there’s no reason it always has to be up to me. And even if I’m the one who does it, when I do and for how long isn’t something that’ll end up in my obituary.

So I gotta let go of the guilt.

Maybe an energetic bout of satisfying cleaning will shake me out of this funk. Or I could write another post…

Truth in advertising

A user of an online forum I frequent has this statement in her signature: SAHM and loving every minute of it.

 

What a filthy liar.

For those of you who don’t visit parenting forums, SAHM doesn’t stand for Seeking Available Hot Man – it’s Stay At Home Mother. The acronym is irrelevant anyway since no one on this earth barring the Dalai Lama can convincingly claim to enjoy every single minute of their day.

There are a lot of minutes in a day. 1440 in fact. Frankly, who ever enjoys 1440 of anything that comes without a colourful melt-in-your-mouth-not-in-your-hand coating? And a pile of 1440 M&Ms has to include a few of those dodgy ones where the chocolate might have gone white, and even the most appealing red ones are pretty mundane after the first ten. They simply cannot all be lovable.

Take the least lovable of my last 1440 minutes:

   * Realise the vile smell wafting over isn’t from the dog this time. Spend a good three minutes wiping diarrheoa off a wriggly Bean’s bottom and another two dealing with an environmentally friendly but incredibly revolting cloth nappy. Resolve never to feed Little Bean pineapple again. (5 minutes)

   * Sit in the food court of a shopping centre with a grumpy baby. Fiddle through several layers of clothing and offer her a breast. Involuntarily exclaim as she nips it. Try to continue patiently as two older women at neighbouring table stare and whisper derisively. Feed peacably for a few minutes before she hears a sound and wrenches away. Hastily cover breast, only to draw protests from her because she wants more booboo. Oblige. Receive gift of vomit on clean shirt. (12 minutes)

  * Have the totally unmotherly desire to go to the toilet outside of nap time. Decide to attempt this feat solo. Listen to shrill screaming from the living room throughout entire process. (1 minute)

   * Sit in the waiting room of medical surgeon, mentally calculating how late he can be for my appointment before we’re going to miss baby’s dinner time. Stop her from chewing on a magazine, receive steely stare from other patients when she starts wailing, give up and let her chew like a puppy. Finally get in to see surgeon and have to choose between surgery in two weeks or surgery the week before Christmas. Avoiding being cut open not an option. Kneel on floor to use only two hands to gather up nappy bag, toys, chewed magazine, huge envelope with ultrasound images and squirmy baby whilst surgeon stands by and watches. (45 minutes)

   * Take three full attempts (including singing, rocking, pacing, feeding, cammomile remedy) to finally get some evening peace. (73 minutes)

1440 – 136 = 1304 minutes that might have been possible to love.  I suppose a less curmudgeonly soul might at least have liked most of them. But 1304 ain’t every minute and today was a pretty good day.

Don’t get me wrong – I love my daughter and I love motherhood. It’s not as easy as going to a paid job every day but it’s better. And there is no denying that quite a few minutes today involved a warm little cherub drifting to sleep at my breast, bringing me great inner calm and intense joy.

 Still, I demand truth in advertising. No more warm fuzzy statements out there where teenagers wondering if parenthood would be a good career move might be lurking. Or worse – where other mothers like me (ie: the human variety) might feel that familiar pang of inadequacy as we are reminded yet again that every day is meant to be filled with sweet breathy baby cuddles and fluffy white towels and hilarious moments of learning on immaculately clean floors. Not a frustrated bout of swearing or a frantic dash around the house to find the number for the Maternal and Child Health Helpline allowed in the land of the perfectly happy and fulfilled mother.

Perhaps I could take some inspiration from that mother’s forum signature and start a line of bumper stickers: ‘SAHM and loving a maximum of 1304 minutes per 24 hours and probably considerably fewer’ is sentimental enough for my liking.