Author: Sheila Quirke

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Anthem of a Middle Aged Mom

I had some time alone yesterday, which for a mom is a precious commodity.  It was unplanned, this time alone, and most of it was spent in the car and scouring a variety of Targets (city and suburban, yo) for half price Reese Peanut Butter Trees.  Mary Tyler Dad’s winter coat had been left at a relatives and said relatives were planning to ditch Chicagoland soon for a warmer climate.  Chances are, despite global warming, that he might be needing his winter coat before March, so off I went, dutiful wife that I am.

I do some of my best thinking in the car, especially alone and on a quick moving expressway.  Open roads get my mental juices flowing.  Something about speed and music lets my thoughts wander.  And so it was yesterday.

The holiday chaos was weighing heavy on me.  Yet another year had passed without me sending Christmas cards, doing much baking, wrapping gifts before Christmas Eve, and on and on and on.  Holiday fail.  Again.  I want better for myself and my family, but every year it is the same.  The mailbox is full of beautiful shining children and families wishing us the best the season has to bring.  Damn, our friends have some attractive kids.  Our countertop has a small mountain of baked goods from close friends and neighbors.

I can’t help but notice that most of the moms who baked these treats and mailed their family cards are moms who work both inside and outside the home.   How do they do it? is a question that plays on constant loop in my head.  Seriously, ladies, how do you do it?

Once I was thoroughly ensconsed in my inadequacy, THE THOUGHT hit me:  I feel like that tiny little metal ball in a pinball machine, getting whacked about here and there, willy nilly, utterly overwhelmed by bells, whistles, lights, and obstacles.  I just bounce around, hitting walls and getting whacked,endlessly, until I fall into the black hole.  Ugh.  It is exhausting.  Worse, there is a screaming, jolly child at the controls.  Ugh.

The pinball analogy felt so right, so on target, that I knew I had stumbled onto my truth.

Years ago, before middle age and before kids and before cancer, I worked with a group of women, all of whom were 10-25 years older than me.  Most were lovely, smart gals.  One wasn’t.  She bugged the hell out of me.  She was mealy and frumpy and irritating and basically unqualified to do the work she was paid to do.  She would endlessly complain about how “fractured” she felt.  She had her home life, and her work life, and her daughter life, and her mother life and her wife life.  To 30 year old me, she sounded crazy and lazy and a little unhinged.  To 42 year old me, I shudder to say that I recognize what she was talking about.  I identify.  Yes, I surely do.  Ugh.

There is one vital difference, though.  I refuse to become a victim to my life’s circumstances.  I refuse to whine about my middle-aged angst with colleagues 10 and 20 years my junior.  I refuse to throw in the towel and continue to be that little metal ball getting whacked about by the levers of my life.

I am not a little metal ball.  I am a strong ass woman who has done impossible things with grace and dignity.  I am a strong ass woman who is capable of things I have not yet imagined.  I am a strong ass woman who can do better.

And I will.

 

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Sr. Iphielya: Oy Vey, Christmas Can Be Difficult

Sr. Iphielya
Hello, there.  I’m just getting the hang of this email and, oh my, there is a lot to learn.  So many buttons!

Well, it seems there are more than a few of you out there that could stand a little more empathy and understanding in your lives.  Sr. Iphielya is here and in the motherhouse, so let’s spend a few moments together, shall we?

I received many, many letters since I made my debut on Mary Tyler Mom last week.  I love her, don’t you?  Such a nice lady.  Where was I?  Oh, yes, the letters.  I do wish to respond to all of them, and I will, but it will take some time, please.  Single file will do nicely.

Christmas is just around the corner.  Seven days and counting, my friends!  This time of year is difficult for many of us.  So much to do, so little $ to do it with, so many dramas with the family, and lots and lots of deep seated feelings of grief and loss bubbling up to the surface.  In the convent, I learned that efficiency is a virtue, so I am going to try and address two letters with one post!

During this season of joy, merriment, family and office gatherings, many of our hearts hang heavy with the things we don’t have, but wish we did.  For some, it is toys for the little ones.  For others it is that little one — the little baby we wish to hold and call our own.  And for others still, it is the one who held us when we were babies.

The holiday season often means we spend lots and lots of time with cookies and cousins.  There is small talk and good cheer, but there is also forced cheer.  You know what I mean, don’t you?  That gathering where all together are doing their level best to ignore the sadness that is shared, but so often not discussed.  One of my letter writers wrote to me in hopes of finding another mother, as she had lost her own this past summer.  Oh, dear.  Losing a mother is hard.  I know this myself.  For those of us lucky ones, our mothers were all they should be.  They loved and cared for us, cheered us up, prodded us, poked us when needed, and held us when things weren’t going too well.  There is no other soul that does quite what a mother does for us, is there?

If you’ve lost your mom, these holidays of family and cheer can be difficult.  And as hard as Christmas Day will be, Mother’s Day will hurt you, too.  I like to think that the holidays turn up the volume of our hearts.  All that we feel is just a little more intense this time of year.  And that first year?  That first year when your mother won’t be baking the cookies, wrapping the gifts, encouraging her flock to behave as they should — that is one of the hardest of all.

I’ve some words of advice for you.  Nuns always do, you know, have words of advice.  I do hope you will consider them in the spirit in which they are offered — with love and empathy.  Consider remembering your Mom that day.  Be it with the green and radish Jell-o mold you told me about, or with a toast before the feast.  Talk about her.  Mention her name.  Acknowledge that she is missed.  If tears are shed, offer a Kleenex.  There is no shame in a tear being shed for a loved one gone before us.  We miss them.  It’s okay to talk about that.

Other gatherings may include a loss that is more personal.  Like for the reader who shared the difficulty of infertility.  Unlike losing a mom, a grown adult who all recognize and miss when gone, the loss of a child through miscarriage, or even the idea of a child, the desire of a child, is not always as well recognized.  People don’t understand it, do they?  There is no great way to grieve that loss publicly, or even with others you may be close to.  I might suggest, when the well intentioned (one hopes) comments come about, as they most certainly will, you act as a duck and let that water roll off your back.  Talk to your partner about your pain.  He, or she (it is the 21st century, even for us nuns), will understand in a way others will not.  Or, at least, I hope they will.  I suppose even your partners don’t always understand that pain.

My point is, dear one, is that the insensitive comments you receive are uneducated, but not malicious.  They want for you what you want, these folks free with the advice, and think their comments might just help.  You know and I know they do not.  This week of celebrations will no doubt provide ample opportunity for the “well intentioned” in your life to trot out their advice for you.  They don’t want to know of your medical difficulty.  They just don’t.  They want you to have a child, because they know you want one.  It is sad, to be sure, but I believe it is true.

Harsh, perhaps.  I am sorry for that.  I know from experience the holidays can be brutal.  Sr. Iphielya wants to prepare you for that brutality.  Arm you with some coping skills that will help you get through the day.  Some years, that is the best we can hope for, right?  Get though the day.  I assure you that come January, that volume on your feelings will eek down just a bit.  You will feel a little more yourself and less vulnerable.  I do hope so for you.

Alrighty, dear ones!  Sr. Iphielya is being called to mediate a squabble over who will peel the potatoes and who will mash the potatoes for Sunday dinner.  Please do take care of yourself this holiday season.  And remember, the motherhouse is just an email away!  sriphielya@gmail.com

 

 

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SAHMs v. SAHDs

I had the most interesting of conversations today and needed to share.  And I want you to weigh in, too. 

For those in the know, the cool kid way to refer to a stay at home mom is to call her a SAHM (sounds like SAM).  I was a SAHM for four years, and not by choice.  When my girl was born, I made arrangements to move to a part-time schedule.  I was lucky and knew it.  It completely worked for me, as if felt like a good balance between home and work.

When Donna was diagnosed, out of necessity, I left my job, which was actually a career.  It was one of the victims of cancer, but compared to the loss of Donna, the loss of my career was peanuts.  It made me sad, but if I ever talked about  it out loud, I would stop myself, as I worried it sounded HORRIBLE.  Here I was mourning the loss of a career and identity when I had lost something so much more.  I was very conflicted.  And jealous.  That’s right.  Jealous of Mary Tyler Dad who, from my grieved = warped POV, “got to” go back to work after a couple of weeks of mourning. 

I found myself lost, alone, overwhelmed, and with a ten month old to care for.  I was a SAHM without the duties of a Cancer Mom, which made me a SAHM.  It was me and Mary Tyler Son.  It was lonely.  Lonely with a capital “L” Lonely.  In retrospect, I am utterly grateful for the time.  Celebrating my one year anniversary of returning to work this week, it is clear that I was in no place to return to work so soon. 

Today’s conversation brought up the realm of the SAHD (sounds like SAD, ironically).  I spent some time today with a couple where Mom works outside the home and Dad works inside the home.  Both were incredibly open about the challenges of this arrangement.  Dad was very honest about believing the natural order was reversed.  He wished to be out providing for his family instead of being the primary caregiver for their gorgeous (and I do mean gorgeous) toddler. 

Mom was honest about the challenges.  For her, being a stay at home parent meant caring for child, home, food, and the details that make the family run smoothly.  She described what I would call a domestic engineer — a do it all kind of manager that handled all things home related.  Christmas cards, invitations, gift buying — the kind of home manager I aspire to me, but fail miserably.  Sigh.

I didn’t disagree with her.  When I woke up one day, six months into my grief of losing Donna, I realized that Mary Tyler Dad came home from the office every day around 6 or 6:30 and cooked dinner.  Oops.  I was ashamed.  I believe that if you have the gig of a stay at home parent, it means you are responsible for kids, home, food.  I was managing the kid and home, as I like a clean and tidy home, but was failing miserably at the food.  When we both worked, it didn’t bother me so much that Mary Tyler Dad did the cooking.  Now that I wasn’t working outside the home or caring for a child with cancer, seeing him come home from work and immediately get to the other work of cooking, I felt like a total and complete failure.

In the spring of 2010, I made a concerted effort to learn how to cook.  Nothing gourmet, nothing fancy.  I grew up with canned vegetables and iceburg lettuce, so my vision and skill set were both lacking inspiration.  I just wanted to cook something delicious and nutritious for my man.  Shockingly, I didn’t hate it.  I didn’t love it, but I began to understand food as an expression of love. 

Long story short, I went back to work last year and we’re scrambling again, Mary Tyler Dad and I, to get the food on the table at a reasonable time.  He is doing a bit more, I am doing a bit less, and I have the guilt to prove it.

My point is, though, that this couple were very aware that with the traditional roles reversed, they each had a different idea of what the responsibilities of a stay at home parent entailed.  I’ve got to agree with Mom on the child, home (including laundry), and food front.  I would say that those three basics would cover it.  But there is Dad, and I can’t discount his POV.  He is doing a great job with kids, but doesn’t see home or food as part of the deal. 

I would argue that SAHDs might agree with this Dad whole heartedly, esp. if I keep my pulse on the musings on facebook or amongst my friends.  The dads I know and interact with, almost to a fault, including Mary Tyler Dad, do a bang up job with the kids.  They are hands on, involved, supportive, loving.  But all that other stuff seems not to register with them.  They don’t see the dirty dishes in the sink or on the counter.  The dust bunnies are invisible to them.  That growing mass of fabric in the corner of the room is just another place for the kiddo to play, not something that is to be sorted, laundered, folded, and put away.

I would also argue that SAHDs have to deal with a hell of a lot more mental muck when they are the ones staying at home with the wee ones while their wives trot off to the office or hospital or factory.  While I don’t necessarily support a SAHD’s neglect of the home and food fronts, I have more empathy for his position.  Is that terrible and a double standard?  Yep.  Is it sexist?  Probably.

When the roles are reversed, when it is the dad at home with the kids, do the same rules apply to them?  Talk to your Mary Tyler Mom — tell me what you think.