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There are certain things about myself that I share on this here internet, that perhaps would be best kept to myself.  Through Mary Tyler Mom, you know that I have a cleaning lady, you know that Mary Tyler Son is named after Chicago’s Mayor Daley, and (sorry for this one), you know about my trampoline incontinence episode.

Today I will reveal the extent of my bad tee vee habits.

I watch a lot of it, and would watch much more if given half a chance.  Last year I all but forfeited reading for the whole new world of tee vee that the iPad brought me.  Between HBO Go, Netflix, Hulu+, and abc.com, it’s a wonder that Mary Tyler Son eats and has clean clothes to wear.  Mary Tyler Dad is known as the “iPad widower” in our home.   Sigh.  I’m not proud of it, and I hope it is a phase, albeit a longlasting one, but there it is:  My name is Mary Tyler Mom and I am addicted to bad tee vee.

“Hi, Mary Tyler Mom!”

I see I am in good company.

I acknowledged I had a problem on Thanksgiving when my beloved cousin revealed that she had stopped reading and her dear husband had left a library book for her on the nightstand as a nudge to get her back into the reading game.  I recognized myself.  I, too, had stopped reading.  I totally and completely blame the iPad.  Another cousin warned me about it over a year ago when I was waxing poetic about my new toy.  “Don’t read your books there, or you’ll stop reading.”  I told her I had started electronic books.  She warned me that was all well and good, but not to read the electronic books on the iPad, as there were too many other distractions.  Yeah, she was right.  Fourteen months later, I think I have read only three books.

Today I learned that the newest season of The Bachelor premieres.  It is, quite possibly, the worst show on tee vee.  Predictable, insanely gendered, stupid, fluffy.  And yet, I secretly cheered inside.  It’s my son’s third birthday today, and with this news, I thought I was getting the gift.

Yes, I have a problem.

Okay.  So I watch a lot of bad tee vee.  Real Housewives of the SVU hire House Hunters for a Nip/Tuck.  It’s not good, but it’s not terrible, either.  Bad tee vee helps me relax.  It gets me out of my head, which can get kind of gloomy sometimes.  A little bad tee vee is no problem.  What I want to watch is the balancing act.  Too much tee vee = not enough reading, not enough talking with Mary Tyler Dad, not enough time to organize around the house, etc.  Imma try to keep it balanced this new year.

The good news is that I’m a third of the way through a new book.  A paper book with pages and a cover, old school.  And I get extra points for effort, as it is a first person history of Berlin in 1933.  Go big or go Bachelor.  Wish me luck.

Oh, and why don’t you plan on hanging out with me on my facebook page this year?  It’s a good time.  For reals.

 

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.

 

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.