Posted on 03/15/2006 8:46:15 AM PST by Hannah Senesh
Who has time to spend an afternoon at home, standing aside and watching the ordinary lives of our children?
"You wouldn't believe what Ive been doing for the last few weeks," said my friend Shirley as we both eyed the sophisticated basket of baked goods at the trendiest food shop in the city, and pick at a bowl of freshly-cut vegetables gleaming with just the right amount of spiced virgin olive oil.
"Every evening I try to recreate the taste of the omelet and the salad my mother used to make, and I cant do it. I use different vegetables, I refresh the oil, I mix it up with emotionbut nothing happens. It all comes out with todays taste. I want that good old-fashioned taste."
"It's obvious," I explained, "you need to use regular oil instead of olive oil. You cant use canola, either. Go to the supermarket, buy a bottle of corn or soy oil, and youll find your childhood memories in that bottle," I assured her.
That evening I tried it at home: cucumber, tomato, and onion in a shower of regular oil with a lot of salt. It came out so perfectly that I imagined the tune of an old childrens television program and I fantasized that my mother would come out of the kitchen in a moment in a checkered apron, stand in the living room, and scold me for faking my scales on the piano again.
Once upon a time
Once upon a time the kitchen was not merely an unwelcome intruder in the living room. Once upon a time the pile of dishes did not reach the ceiling. Once upon a time, every room in the house had a door you could close. Try setting limits today.
Once upon a time, mothers were at home at 5:30, busily preparing the evenings dinner. It wasnt that they worked less than we do today. They worked, studied, cooked, and cleaned. Few had hired cooks or housekeepers; they simply managed things differently. But mostly it was the norm for parents to be with their children.
Even the most demanding job started to quiet down towards 5 or 6 p.m., and fathers came home while it was still light out, which gave rise to a custom of "being at home."
Those were the days
Once upon a time it was perfectly okay to work until 2 or 3 p.m., and anyone whose workday included a long mid-day break went home for lunch and a quick afternoon nap, which meant that parents were at home. They were present. They hovered in our lives and our consciousness. We saw them, we smelled them, we felt them.
They were not our mobile entertainment, they did not sit all day playing with us or creating activities for us, but they were there: they sent us on missions like folding laundry, had us stand beside them to peel potatoes or check for stones in the rice, listened with full attention to our conversations about ourselves, corrected us where necessary, and got involved, and there was a sense that we were not alone, so we didnt feel lonely. We didnt need to be the center of anyones universe because we were part of the world.
Who has the time for all that today?
Today, I dont know how much we are really at home, really present, as our parents were in our lives. How many times a week do we spend the afternoon at home, standing off to the side and watching the simple daily activities of our children: the struggles over the temptation to play games instead of doing homework, the small tricks over the lunch plate?
Busy lives
Most of our children, after all, eat lunch in daycare centers and come home at 4 p.m. Some are brought home by babysitters, others by a parent who rushes out from a job he is forced to cut cruelly short, and immediately they run to various after-school activities, to meet friends, or to run errands.
And who has time anyway just to sit around the house and notice the smell of the house, the special sounds of 4 oclock in the afternoon, the slow transition from full light to dusk?
Everyones in the same space.
Today the workday for parents is long and intolerable, and very few parents manage to get home while it is still light out to be with their children. Only those who are really lucky have a job that allows them, if not to work from home, then at least to do some of the tasks in the afternoon from home, within the most important four walls of their lives.
What kids want
Because that is what our children really want. For us to be home. Not to play with them all day long, not to read to them endlessly, and not to turn them into the sun that shines in the center of our universe.
All they want is for their lives and ours to be conducted, at least some of the time, in the same space for there to be enough overlap to hold onto. They want to feel we are truly there with them. Not just on the phone, giving out instructions, but really at home, in the same protected, complete physical space, busy with our affairs, working or cooking or cleaning or having a rest in the afternoon, but there. Accessible. Flesh and blood.
Perhaps if we internalize this, we will succeed in educating ourselves to work fewer hours and to run less quickly to nowhere.
This doesnt just depend on the individual, of course; it demands awareness and consideration from employers and bosses as well. But dont they want to connect to themselves from the most basic and simplest place? Dont they want to use the gift of life to the fullest instead of passing through it without any idea where they came from and where they are going?
And perhaps, if we were more tranquil and moved slower, we would even manage to recreate the taste of the omelets from the good old days.
Mystery solved
By the way, one phone call to my busy mother solved the riddle: the omelets of my childhood were cooked using Blueband margarine, the miraculous rectangle that added a gleam to every dough, that moistened every cake, and that was licked with gusto when covered with a goodly layer of white sugar on a piece of regular white bread.
I called Shirley right away: "Go buy Blueband margarine. It will bring the taste back to your omelet." But she was already standing next to the counter, stirring an organic millet pancake mix with her oldest daughter, which she intended to eat with honey and dates.
Anat Lev-Adler is the author of the bestselling "Secrets of Working Mothers", published by Yedioth Ahronoth
Excellent post and I agree completely.
Soon, Dulcie and Finbar. Soon.
;-)
well said!
My husband says that all the time & heres a shock, I agree.
Women weren't forced. They chose to join the market place.
What a hoot! He's got a full time job as an electrical engineer. As a civil engineer, he and I have fairly equal incomes. You suggest a doubling of his salary for me to stay home, how?
LOL. I am a parent telling the "back in my day" story to my adult kids. They have a hard time understanding because they have not experienced such a life. We both worked and Mom went to work only after kids were in school all day. We both drove together 1 hour each way meaning our day was a minimum of 10 hours. Dinner was home cooked every night and we all ate together. Kids had jobs to do after school and when they got to the upper grades in high school they worked part-time jobs.
We did not pay for college of any of them. We did however borrow the money. They paid/pay it back. Two were not college material and didn't last long. Two were. Of those two, one became a State trooper after 2 years of criminal justice classes and the other one graduated suma cum laude with 3 majors and 2 minors in teaching. She has not gone to work. She has 2 boys and lots of money to pay back on her loans. I am encouraging her to homeschool and enjoy her family. They are getting by at the present time on her husband's paycheck.
The two without college educations are doing well also. One works for Dept of Transportation and the other married a CPA. Regardless of their work or type of job--they were all raised to understand if you want to eat you have to work for it. None (including in-laws) are too proud that they would not dig a ditch if that was what fed them. All were married before they had children.
We did the best we could as most families do. The difference is values and priorities and everyone has a different definition and I believe that is based on the time they live in and what it takes to survive. Funny how they perceive the goings on in the world so differently. Privacy, freedom of speech, etc. They have adapted and conformed as taught by society. I never did conform and still don't. I have been referred to many many times as a rebel. Life moves on and the minority rule.
That kind of model simply isn't going to hold up over time, and people are spending more and more time traveling to and from work than ever before.
There you go. You feel like you were "forced" to work, yet you chose a professional, remunerative career instead of just a "job". Hopefully you're getting more out of working than just a paycheck.
He'd have to do something to make up at least part of an income differential if you're planning to stay home at some point.
No, women weren't forced, but we were told that if you didn't work you weren't worth much. The women's movement has been very destructive to the woman's psyche. We are caught in a catch-22. If you do work outside the home, you aren't a good mom and if you don't work, outside the home, you aren't contributing to the family. Too many of us bought into this and now regret it. My son says he didn't miss out on anything. I was able to have him in daycare for an hour in the morning before school and I was home when he got out of school. I was Team Mom to most of his sports teams and when he was sick, I was able to go into work when my husband got home. I was running ragged, but I felt lucky to be able to be with him as much as possible and still work. I don't know what is the answer. We haven't lived an opulent lifestyle, a second income allowed us to own our home and take a yearly vacation. Can you tell me what perfection is in this situation?
The answer, of course, is there is no "perfection", just everyone trying to do the best they can for their own particular situation. Unfortunately, there are always plenty of people who are willing to tell you you're doing it "wrong", for going to work or for staying home. :-[
Price controls and the winding down of the Vietnam war helped fuel inflation.
The government needs to hear complaints about how IT is driving up the cost of college, by providing huge subsidies to "needy" students. College has always cost whatever the market will bear, and if everyone is eligible for a deferred-interest loan to the tune of $5000+ a year, the sticker price of college tuition will go up by the same amount. Not to mention all the idiotic regulations (Title IX etc.) that the government forces colleges to comply with at significant cost, in order to participate in the financial aid gravy train that they have to participate in to be competitive with other colleges for getting students.
You mean the same IT that moved jobs out of the country so they could compete? The same IT that claimed cheaper labor has made the products more affordable say at WalMart?
Geez, I would think there should be no needy students in college or are the real complaints for Congress to find a way to finance these kids? Kids can still work and put themselves through college if they so choose. I tend to think these kids and their parents want a no money worry guarantee to college. If that isn't true--why are the parking lots at colleges so big and stuffed with cars? For that fact parking lots at the high schools are stuffed with pretty new cars. And who bought all those cars and pay to park them? Kids need to get a job and pay for or help their parents pay for their education. Overhead costs are part of the cost of education. Last I looked they were not provided by the school (books, pencils, parking, various fees, room and board, and on and on). IT is not relevant. It is no different than a book.
I have been an at-home mom for 13 years. I taught at a community college before that. I've been home schooling for 7 years.
We (my kids and I) have never watched the same movie over and over again. We don't watch TV because we don't have TV. We have a television set that we use for movies. And, we have the sense to watch a movie once and return it.
We read. We garden. We play piano. We draw and paint. We cook and bake. We talk to.....adults. We participate in community activities. Son is in sports. Daughter is in music.
I don't regret leaving the work force. But, I do shudder when I think of the possibility of having to go back to work. What a bore that would be.
It's not a good idea to think in stereotypes. The "bored at-home mom" is a stereotype. It's better to think of individuals. I am an individual mom at home who loves it.
If you are ever going to have them have them NOW. You'll find a way to make ends meet. Money is always flexible. Time isn't. If you put off having the kids you may never and you will regret it.
No one can ever afford kids but have them anyway.
My wife (now passed on) and myself started very late. I find myself widowed with a 5 yr old daughter at the age of 45 desperately wanting more kids. Children are the only lasting mark we leave on this world. Have them while you can.
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