Bad Parenting Confessional: Away

I wrote you last week about my vocational challenge now that my old job has come up again. I really appreciate all the witty and wise commentary on that post. Helped enormously. If you ask me this is just what I need this blog for; my friends and family thank you all, too, for your contributions to my sanity.

The saga will continue. I don't have to do anything right now but a lot is suddenly on the table again. What about being a two income family? Do we need it? And, childcare what do you do anyway with kids three and a half and almost two for care -- is there a slam dunk to see them through school starts? Or is it really not worth it at this point with kids 22 months apart? You have to remember Vancouver childcare options are abysmal.

And, staying at home? Wasn't I just committed? (pardon the pun) I was and I wasn't. I mean I feel I can make anything of these choices they are stressful and, in my opinion, too numerous for those addicted to tranquility but I have found out I am not among that group. My family though entirely plain in many respects is not static; we have our chaos. Blessedly benign chaos. It will ever be thus, I expect.

There is really only one outstanding bit of major business. You see back in November when I was sure I was going to work my kids were driving me crazy and vice versa; the bad behavior all around was a concern. I told myself many times that going to work would improve our family. That being away would actually make me a 'better parent' relatively. For shame. Earlier this month when I mentally moved myself to being 'at home' I felt that my previous mind-set was pretty sick. I looked at everything and decided I couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't ever think absence would be a means to my being a better parent. Like a quest for the holy grail I was set to one task; to find something -- and everything -- else available to make me a better parent besides that. One who is better with the full acknowledgement of the impossibility of being good enough.

But now am I back to square one? How will I apply my new found knowledge to this scenario? Am I a stay-at-homer at heart? You know I have never had a childcare arrangment that lasted more than 7 months? Do I sabotage them since I want it to be me?

(A bunch of this goes to the SAHM's myths of perfection. I will still be keeping up my 52 reasons. Who knows maybe those 52 will represent the 12 months service I am supposed to give my employer before I am allowed to resign from work scot-free.)

52 reasons: People are People

I have a lot of reasons why I thought I would never make a good stay-at-home mom. Sure I could start with something easy like, I don't have enough patience, or I am addicted to my career but no. No. Sharp inhalation, here goes.

I never thought I would be a good stay-at-home mom because.... I don't really like women.

Oh for shame. What was wrong with me? I thought raising children was women's work? and androgyny my defense?

I was always sort of weak at being a chick, suspicious of girls -- and women it seems. But dudes? Well, I was the soccer mom at 18. I was driving my co-worker bellmen friends from the tourist-compound mandatory hospitality service I did in '88, call it Rocky Mountain Hotelerific piss up and pinch stuff for a summer or two, to their soccer games in Canmore. Ah soccer, is it not the very best sport for the display of fine male specimen buns? I lent them my car to make extra $$$. The other waitresses? Oh, no, thanks. I'm not here to fit in, woman-person.

I ultimately drifted to the fringes of my lady-laden library profession? Note, my expertise falls outside of books or tale telling. My skills are grafted, instead, to IT. I routinely advise some geek, as a means of conflict resolution "Oh come on. We can do it this way just this once right? Try it or I'm breaking up with you."

So is it true? If I hate going to the mall... and If I haven't read a diet book in 25 years...and If I am selfish and superficial and like to watch sports on tv, sometimes. Does that mean I can't be a stay-at-home mom?

Well it turns out. No.

Facet #1 of the mythology. Stay-at-homers aren't all Moms. Seems roughly half the population of parentingland is made up of men. Good, that keeps it interesting. Why hadn't I thought of that?

Then. Facet #2 The girls are alright. Women are what makes this game run. Sure there are the competimommies and the cliques and the deepening political divides. But all that seems a lot more gutless here in the glow of afterbirth than it ever did at under the dim lights of the dance palaces of youth jostling for mirror space to perfect each application of mascara and every slink of a blouse or hem. We are all, or at least many of us ready to admit, hacks. At work I was out to be the best in the business -- so many of us were. In the mothering game for every 1 out to succeed I would suggest there are 4 or 8 sane, self-effacing and affable mother-people. This based on my well-sourced bloggy research acumen.

As one friend says, I just need to get back to the hut. The heterogeneity can be overrated. I just want the women and children together in the hut awash in comprehension and support. I wont [sic] some other woman to hold my baby while I have a shower! Today I had a date with M. (not her real name) and I was happy as could be wrapt in mom on mom action for nearly 2 hours. Just a cuppa and her bouncing baby girl (10 months, since I know you're wondering). We shared our failings and our outlandishly high standards. We came to the agreement that to completely suck 3-4 times weekly was a good baseline.

-- yes I am trying to put that song in your head!

At Home: Redux

I gave notice to our nanny yesterday. It was an interesting 90 days of childcare with no work to justify it.

I drove through rush hour to get home to my family after another aimless grievance discussion. It is firm. I am unemployed. While a thread or two remains to connect me to my working world the realist in me must put it into words. I am unemployed. Put me out of the discomforts of limbo.

Today, I feel like a stay-at-home mom for the first time. Silly isn't it? I have been looking after my kids for pretty much 3 out of the last 4 years and only today I felt I crossed that threshold?

I put it all down to being so conventional. I guess in my own mind Maternity leave was just that. It seems that what Foucault tells us is real. I was let to leave. But yesterday. Today. I quit. I left. And, where did I go? Here. At home.

FIN

ps... In the coming weeks you can expect to assist me with the 52 myths of SAHM'ing I must confront. My own prejudices, stereotypes, fears and inadequacies. P-man and I like to call all this CANHer; bloggy enough?