Vacuum

"Do you like being at home?"

The question hangs in the air still. 5 days after I sat over lunch with the dear friend who posed it.

"I like looking after my kids", I said.

Was that accurate? No. It was pretty vacuous, actually.

I turn the question over and over again. No short answers arise. Do I think it is important to be at home? OK. Do I find it satisfying? No. Would I rather be at work? Not really/Only if I could be two places at once. What about work? Is it more important to me? Well it is pretty important, but that's not it.

I think at times about what I miss about work. That's easy. I am VERY good at my job. I miss being 'very good' at something. In my case motherhood has found accomplishment and validation to be rather fleeting. Since any barely good mothering, if not parenting, stresses the need for an unrelenting putting aside of self-seeking.

If pressed I would argue that there are many like me who crave a greater degree of validation in their lives than parenting offers. I would further argue that thousands a few use this unconscious need to fuel cliche judgementalism and peer-parent hating. If the kids won't make us feel valued, hell, at least we can gossip about being lesser fuck ups than the Smiths, Joneses and Changs.

"Do I like being at home?"

Whadda ya mean? This a crazy crazy business. This life inside the consumo-corporate defined family contract. It isn't really a matter of liking it. But for now, I wouldn't have it any other way.

In related news I am so sick of the growing ubiquity of febreze. It is about as extraneous as the phrasing growing ubiquity.

** for more on the should she or shouldn't he of stay-at-homes check the links, hey.