Me: A Homemaker!

For all of my life I have had a particular opinion about being a homemaker: While I admired and respected the homemakers I knew, I always wondered a) how they could be satisfied with such a life, b)if they ever wanted 'more,' and c) why they chose to do that instead of something more 'important' with their lives.

Perhaps (probably?) this is a symptom of a particular feminist culture that I was raised in (in the larger culture).  As I've gotten older I have come to more and more appreciate the value and satisfaction that we all get from traditionally 'women's work,' and I've also come to feel that the idea that women's work is 'unimportant' (however it started) is an unfortunate idea that has sadly been promoted by some of the very people who hoped to advance the position of women in our society.

It was largely from this frame of reference that I started my journey into being a homemaker.  Since Lily was born and I began to try to figure out how to take care of her and manage a good life for our family, I have approached it from an attitude of homemaking as taking a backseat, in importance, to my 'me' time and my artistic/business pursuits.  

Because of this basic ordering of priorities I often felt frustrated by how much time I was having to spend as caretaker of my child and our house.  I would feel resentful at the idea that I had to 'do most of the work' in the house and scrimp on my duties in order to taker more time to myself and 'relax.'

I have been really thinking about my basic attitude about this and come to the conclusion that I really need to change my way of thinking about being a homemaker.  It's kind of amazing how much of a difference it makes to look at things from a different direction!

1. My primary job in our family is to take care of Lily and our home.  Eric works hard at his job in order to take care of our family financially, and also derive personal and professional satisfaction, and it is only fair (as his partner) that I take my job seriously and understand how important it is to learn my job well and realize how lucky I am to have the option to take care of my family full-time.

2.  I haven't the first clue about how to make a happy and healthy home for our family. Most people I know were at least raised in clean and functional homes and therefore have a pretty good idea of how to make a home work.  I did not have that experience as a child (in my own home at least) and must therefore learn for myself how to create and maintain a comfortable space for all of us to thrive within... also, I feel I was somewhat handicapped by not being taught to live in a healthy and clean way; I absolutely do not want Lily to grow up with those same deficiencies. 

3. creating and maintaining a home that is beautiful, comfortable, and stable IS an important job.  It is through our work as homemakers that we are able to provide a foundation for our entire family to thrive inside and outside of the home.  We give our families an oasis of safety and calm, and having this foundation provides the energy, feeling of security, and confidence for everyone to strive to reach their fullest potential.  In thinking about it, I believe that having the foundation of a stable home environment is perhaps the most important ingredient for a child to be able to explore and develop into the best person they can become.  So I no longer wonder how homemakers could be satisfied with such 'unimportant' work; I now see that our job is the glue of a family that works and is of at least equal importance to work outside.

So, in this spirit of understanding I am trying very hard to organize my home life and time.  I am reading books on how to keep house, thinking about the things I learned from my aunt (who is a great homemaker) and wishing I remembered how it all worked, thinking about the homemaking skills I've observed in the other women I know and trying to plan and schedule it into my own life.  I have given myself a year to learn how to be a reasonably good homemaker (in at least the basic ways) and have started by making a housekeeping schedule that, at the very least, will keep our house clean.  I am also trying to start cooking and planning menus.

It's funny, so many people consider the domestic arts to be 'easy' and therefore unimportant but I have to admit that this is the single most difficult undertaking I've ever encountered... it's complicated and very time and mind consuming.  There are dozens of things to remember all at once and the need to carefully fit into place all of the most important elements of the family.  All of this, too, in the few waking hours of day.

In conclusion, I am proud to say that I am (FINALLY) learning to be a homemaker.  I am joining a proud tradition of women (and a few men) who love their families and provide them a great place and way to live, thrive, find joy, recover from disappointments, and generally share a wonderful life together.  I wish I would have realized this years ago!

Becoming a Californian

All of my life, it seems, I have been struggling against what I, and others, have expected of me.  I know that the people who've hoped and wished for me to settle down, grow up, and get a real job have only felt these hopes for me because they love me and really deeply wish for my happiness.

For a long time I struggled to figure out how to do those things.  I felt guilty and ashamed because I never was quite able to fit into any of the ideals and positions that I saw other people fit into.  I envied my family and friends for being able to find contentment in their families, their jobs and careers, and their lives.  I wished I could be happy being a great housewife and mother, having a stable job that allowed me to have a comfortable life and be independent, and have faith in a spiritual belief that could give me hope and sustain me through the difficult times we all have to endure.

I made progress in my struggles:  I found a way to live independently, be reasonably secure, have good friends, and make some really important achievements.  Always, though, I felt like an outsider, like I was in the wrong place, or time, and I couldn't quite connect with other people and my life.

in July of 2008 I started taking a new anti-depressant, Cymbalta, which was a catalyst to me starting to have a new kind of life.  Since I was a child I was told by "professionals" that I would likely never be able to fix the emotional disconnect and limited feelings I experienced.  They all said I 'might' be able to slowly improve a little with therapy, but that the traumatic experiences of my childhood had likely permanantly damaged my emotional capacity.  For as long as I remember, until Lily was born, I was always (every day) suicidal to some extent.  I hated my life; I was incapable of feeling more than momentary joy, the only form of attachment I could feel was having an intense fear of losing the object of my attachment (none of the reported joyful parts of bonding), I could never feel deep connections with people (emotionally) because I felt like an emotional alien-- I didn't know anyone else who couldn't really feel, I felt isolated and alone--even with my closest friends and family... in all I was emotionally void.  My suicidal wishes were due to that emotional emptiness-- Since I had been told I didn't have hope, I always felt like it was masochistic and pointless for me to live my lonely and unlucky life.

With Cymbalta, though, a new door suddenly opened.  I first noticed that I was feeling an amazing sense of joy about being Lily's mother and experiencing her life and growth with her.  I also began to notice that I was feeling much more emotionally connected to Eric.  My experience of emotional growth spread very quickly and soon I was able to feel closer to my family members and friends, I felt like for the first time I could understand their feelings for their families and relate to them and their experiences.  Admittedly it was not all positive feelings I began to experience-- I also began to feel very guilty and sorry for the times and ways I had been very insensitive to the people in my life.  I began to understand how my actions and words may have been hurtful, even though I didn't mean for them to be so.  On the whole, though, being able to experience a full range of human emotion has been an amazing discovery and gift.

My experience of life was steadily improving in St. Louis.  I had gone from always being suicidal to, from October of 2007, having a reason to not want to die-- Lily needed me.  A few weeks ago, though, Eric was driving a little fast and I suddenly realized that, for the first time ever, I really and truly want to live!!! 

The thing is that being here, in this beautiful place, I finally feel like I belong (even fit in).  I don't feel like I'm missing some important element of humanity that lets me be happy with what makes other people happy.  I don't feel like I'm odd, eccentric, or weird.  I don't feel like I need to be anyone other than who I am.  

I've always been a big thinker, a dreamer (as they say).  All of my life I have felt like my ideas were too big, unrealistic, or in some way simply innatainable.  That belief was usually seconded by the people around me.  I was always "the creative one" and thus it was ok for me to be a little 'weird.'  The thing is, I'm not really weird here.

In St. Louis I was too self-conscious (due to my apparent oddity) to talk to most anyone.  I was even shy with my family and sometimes my closest friends.  But here, I go out and comfortable talk to strangers on the street.  Share my "big" ideas with people I don't even know in my art group, and find that they aren't impossible.  Here, my thoughts and dreams are appropriate, acheivable, and realistic.  Here, the impossible happens every day.

I wondered how long it would take me to feel 'at home' in California and I've found it didn't take me very long at all.  I almost feel like my life in St. Louis was a dream and I'm where I was always supposed to be.  I am  making friends and discovering that highly educated and successful people take me seriously and are interested in my mind.  I can talk to people, even in my house-cleaning clothes, and they don't judge my potential by my appearance.  Here, I am beautiful because of my talent, intelligence, kindness, and potential.  Here I am finding out that I really do have the beginings of all of the things I dream to be.  Here, I don't even fear (too much) that I'm too old to become successful.

I wish I would have been born here.  I've finally found my home.

On Parenting

For me, a lot of figuring out who I want to be has to do with really understanding what kind of parent I want to be.  It's not so much that, as I've heard some people say, my identity has been taken over by my status as 'mother,' but rather that succeeding at motherhood (to me, helping Lily grow into a happy and successful individual {however she defines success}) is the most important goal I have, at this time, in my life. So, I've been thinking a lot about what it takes to be happy and also the kind of mother I want to be. 

I've had many examples of mothers in my life and I really think that I have been lucky to learn a lot from all of them.  From my mother, I want to give Lily a sense of wonder and optimism about the world, encourage her creative mind, engender a sense that she is loved and loveable, give her memories of impromptu songs, stories, and general silliness, and teach her to dream big.  From my aunts, my cousins, my sister-in-law, and my friends, I want to give Lily things I've observed; patience, security and stability, reliability, responsibility, a sense of reality, a little bit of structure and routine (but not enough to encourage rigidity), playfulness, empathy, compassion,honor, duty, and perseverance. 

I don't believe that there is any 'right' way to be a good parent, though there are definitely some very wrong ones, and I guess in the end the most important thing (I've seen) is to provide a child with unconditional love, and protect them from abuse/harm.  I'd probably put stability pretty high on the list of things that it takes, but that may mostly be due to my own very unstable childhood.

In the end, I hope I will manifest all of the best things I've witnessed in other mothers and combine them with my own brand of mothering quirks.  As in all areas of life, I think that balance and moderation are key and that maintaining the right balances throughout her different stages of development will be the biggest challenge we will face.

And I will admit that I am pretty proud of how I've done so far.  I always feared I would be an inadequate parent, but Lily is, happilly, a happy and healthy 17-month old and I've been a large part of making that happen.  I am keeping in mind, though, that I'm coming to the end of the 'easy' part so I want to make sure I'm armed with a strong parenting plan for the years and learning we'll be adventuring through next.