I am a stay-at-home mother of three.
Right there, I bet you conjured an instant visualization. It’s alright, don’t feel bad. Domestic imagining is an easy game to play. Personally, I find it fascinating to notice how deeply I fall into the classic ‘mom’ stereotype and yet how simultaneously allergic I am to some of its accompanying expectations.
It is safe to say that a solid 60 percent of my time on this Earth in recent years has been spent in the kitchen. I own not one but three aprons and at all times you can find homemade popsicles in my freezer. I serve as the (not always willing) resident hostess, cook, waitress, and dishwasher around here. On my short breaks from food collection, preparation, and service each week, I launder and fold umpteen pounds of clothing; pick up, organize, and re-shuffle the whereabouts of toys, puzzles, and books; drive my kids everywhere they need to go; call the babysitter, doctor, school secretary, dentist, exterminator, plumber, and violin teacher; and throw my best efforts behind the ‘et cetera’ that is parenting – cuddling, reading, wiping, washing, laughing, adventuring, disciplining, explaining, and trying like hell to be a good role model.
But I don’t clean the house. And let me be clear: not ever.
Mind you, I don’t forego this mainstay of domestic labor because I am enlightened enough to ‘let it go’ as the advice columns and wise grandmothers all tell you to do when you first get pregnant. I simply don’t want to scrub toilets, vacuum, or mop floors. And no amount of condemning ‘should’ messages delivered silently to myself can change that. I should clarify that for whatever weird psychological reason, I can and will wash dishes and laundry and ‘pick up’ around the house until the cows (or in my case, the kids) come home. To me, that is within the bounds of my duty. The nitty gritty housecleaning – the stuff that keeps the germs, cobwebs, and dust at bay – is where I draw the line.
The deeper issue is that I am not one of those people who can tolerate squalor. I consider my peacefully confident friends with messy houses to be veritable scientific anomalies. I am utterly dependent on a (very) clean, organized environment – so much so that when it strays into hovel status, I flee. Spontaneous play dates at the park, sushi outings, and leisurely walks to the ice cream shop often have a direct correlation to the accumulation of biological mess at my house that has yet to be dealt with, because – ah hem – I prefer not to.
When my daughter returns from school and sees her bed made, she asks if the housekeeper came today. When my barely-speaking toddler walks past our closet of cleaning products, he points toward it, proclaiming, ‘Dada.’ When our youngest smears the kitchen windows with yogurty handprints, the 4-year-old offers to clean them because, as he points out, he is a really good ‘prayer’. It’s true, he is. And it’s also true that his ‘s’ pronunciation is still on the way.
As luck would have it, I have been permitted the indulgence of hanging on to this stubborn and unhelpful refusal of duties. For years, we enjoyed the frequent help of a housecleaner. More recently, we have foregone this luxury and my husband has picked up the slack. As a nod to the unexpected in my (and many) family economies, I should add that my husband is not only our full-time housecleaner and breadwinner but is also is an Ivy League-trained physician. He works long, hard hours in the Emergency Room of an overburdened public hospital, literally toiling in matters of life and death every day. In a different world order, I might greet him at the door after his shift with slippers, newspaper, and cocktail in hand.
Although there are certainly days he wouldn’t mind that, the reality is that I am married to the guy who doesn’t expect me to scour the stovetop but rather is intrigued by turning the unconventional challenge on himself. He does it with enthusiasm, whereas I would likely channel resentment. Ever the creative problem solver, he has fashioned himself a tool belt of dangling spray cans, scrub brushes, and paper towel rolls and each week, he straps it on like one of the guys you see dangling outside a panel of windows on a corporate skyscraper. It is close to impossible not to laugh when I see him scrubbing away studiously, tool belt quivering and jangling. Despite appearances, I realize that laugh is probably 5 percent jest and 95 percent gratitude.
I often call myself an unexpected stay-at-home mother. Never would I have imagined my life on its current course and yet no part of me wants to change direction. My job is incredibly complex – at times exhilarating and at times mind numbing – but ultimately a wonderful fit. That is thanks in large part to the fact that I live in an age and under a roof where I am permitted to reject the elements of the job that might just push me over the edge.
I think the inverse, with accompanying conclusion, is true of my husband. He always knew he would be a doctor with a difficult, at times acutely stressful, work life. And yet the fact that he has a vibrant, messy, loving family that demands his attention and participation in another arena throws a little levity and depth into the mix and makes the whole picture sustainable. If left with only breadwinning devices in his toolbox, I suspect he would feel bored, antiquated, and slightly marginalized.
But for permitting me the extravagance of permanently abandoning the yuck that is housecleaning, he really does deserve the whole slippers, newspaper, and cocktail bit. At least once.
Kate Green Tripp is a journalist, social justice advocate, and aspiring yoga teacher. In 2005, she opted out of the traditional work sphere to launch the epic journey of raising her three children. Kate lives, writes, and plays in Capitola, California. Read more of her writing on her blog.
Photo credit kleer001/Flickr
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