Thursday, February 21, 2013

Is This Going On My Permanent Record?

Unsettled but okay. My babiest grand baby was solemn today and a bit feverish. I think it's those back teeth, big and cutting through the swollen jaw. He grinches and rubs at his face, his ears. He wanted me to hold him and I did, mostly, for three hours and more.
Owen was patient and played and watched TV and we chatted and read some books.
Just that.

Grocery store and Mr. Moon tilled up most of the garden and I've got leftovers heating up and a bread pudding waiting, rich with apples and raisins, cinnamon and nutmeg, golden from my hens' yolks.

It is ever thus, isn't it? Tend to floors and tend to laundry, tend to babies, tend to the garden, tend to dinner. I tend to be that woman. I lived through the Woman's Movement, always feeling a huge amount of guilt because I didn't want a job in an office. I didn't want to be the CEO of a company or the president of a country or a scientist or a dance instructor. I just wanted to tend things.

I still feel that guilt.

What crap.

Yet, it unsettles me sometimes. The feeling that I've failed my gender, failed my community, failed my very world.



18 comments:

  1. That's just plain silly. I love being a mother at home most of all the jobs I have and do and get paid for because I AM THE BOSS.

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  2. Yup. I know that feeling, and since my husband ran off with the younger woman, I occasionally am even more pissed about it. On those bad days I ask myself why I didn't put ME through law school. Oh, well. I took care of my children, and now I'm taking care of my mother. I'm very happy about both those things.

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  3. I'm working at my office enough for us both these days :)

    I want to tend things too. I always have. You're pretty damn good at it!

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  4. I do the same things and feel the same guilt for doing them and loving it. I DO enjoy tending things and dammit, I am good at it.

    -invisigal

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  5. I feel loss that I did the opposite and tended to less significant things than you. It amazes me that you could feel guilt about anything related to such tending as you have succeeded at the most important thing in the world - creating a loving, close family thru multiple generations. I hope little Gibson feels better soon. Love and admiration. S Jo

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  6. You are such a successful tender, though. How can you doubt it's your path?

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  7. Honey, I love you and your moments in the slough of despond.

    XXX Beth

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  8. Interesting how a quest for liberation spurred a whole new level of women's guilt! I don't think you have a thing to feel guilty about. The world needs all types, the nurturers and the businesspeople. (We probably need businesspeople less, in fact.)

    I never wanted to run anything either. I always said I just wanted to work in an air-conditioned environment and make enough money to support myself and be comfortable.

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  9. but but but......as a positive female role model....surely you've helped win the right to chose how to live your life?? Happy weekend x

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  10. You have not failed your gender. You tend to people and you do it well.
    Personally, I never felt better in my life since I quit working outside the house. I wondered if I was going to have an identity after leaving my job for the newspaper. Hell, I never had more identity… I can do whatever I want, and no people yelling at me anymore… I love it to be freelance photographing housewife, just that. Tending to my own things. Who says we have to like the feminist vision? My home IS my nest and castle. And every day that I don't have to go out is the perfect day.

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  11. Hum. But who have you made proud and seen right?

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  12. I just want to add here (as feminist starting way back in the 60s) that I don't think there was ever a feminist vision for every woman to work outside the home. It was more that a woman should get paid the same as a man if she did work outside of the home, and I think it was then, and is now, about bringing the value of our perspective into every environment, including the home, where it has often been just as discounted as it was in the workplace. Okay, end of preaching, but really, hasn't the feminist movement been a kind of major miracle for all of us, regardless of where our energies go each day?

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  13. Elizabeth- Sometimes I feel like the boss and sometimes I feel like everyone else in the entire world is my boss.
    I do, however, get to decide what we eat for supper. So there is that.

    Denise- Someone has to take care of everyone else, right?

    SJ- I know you would be good at it too.

    Invisigal- I am sure that you really are good at it. It's so easy to think that "anyone" could do what we do. On my worst days, I think that's true. Other days, I know it's not.

    S. Jo- But I do see women who have done every bit as well as I have with the tending and yet, have had awesome and important careers too. Not me.

    Angella- Thank you. But look at you! Your kids are amazing AND you've had a career. I am in awe of you.

    Andrea- Well, I don't doubt that it's my path. I don't.

    Beth Coyote- I love you.

    Steve Reed- I especially can relate to the "air conditioned" part of that.

    Young At Heart- I guess so. I do not know.

    Photocat- Well, you know how I feel about having to go anywhere.

    Andrea- Yes! Of course! I think I feel like I wasted my opportunity to really be a part of it. But I am so grateful every day for the fact that women are now seen as equal to men on so many levels. It's absolutely unbelievable how much has changed for the better in the last fifty years.

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  14. If I could tend things at home and still pay the bills without going to the office, I would do it in a hearbeat. To hell with what my gender wants of me. You are a lucky woman to be able to do what you are good at.

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  15. You did a great job of raising some wonderful children and now you are doing the same with your grandkids. That is not failure for sure.

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  16. I am glad for the woman's movement because it has given us a choice. My grandmothers had to stay at home.
    You are a good tender and are a wonderful example. More than you know.

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  17. I always say "It takes a special brand of crazy to be able to stay home and take care of everyone's needs!" and it really does! I've been doing it for 23 years and it terrifies me to think of working outside the home now. Mostly because if I feel like being outside, I go outside and if I feel like I need a down day of book reading, well I do that.

    I think the feminist movement was about choices. Women shouldn't HAVE to work or HAVE to stay home, but we should all HAVE to support each others' decisions and choices. Raise each other up.

    Being a homemaker is a job. A good job.

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