The spiritual path of Sysiphus
As I push through my journey of homemaker, there is a conversation that used to recycle through our marriage on a consistent basis. The generic form of it goes like this:
“I am so exhausted, I have so much work to do and I am just too tired. I want to sit down and do nothing.” says my husband.
“I understand. I’m exhausted too. Can you bathe the kids while I clean the kitchen?” I ask.
“I’d rather not. I just told you I’m really tired and I don’t want to do anything”
“Well I’m really tired too and I want to sit down and do nothing too, but we have kids to feed, bathe, and put to bed. Could you help me get through this?”
“I work all day to support this family. I make money so we have everything we need. I just need some time. I deserve to come home and relax if I want”.
“Well I work around the clock. I am still breastfeeding at 5 am. I don’t even get a break in my sleep. And I work all day making sure you have clothes to wear and food to eat and that your home environment isn’t condemned by a health inspector, and I pay the bills, and organize all four schedules for every person in this family and try to give the kids the emotional support they need so they don’t become drug addicts or snipe shooters, or apathetic non voters. I need more than some time. I need some help. I just want you to bathe the kids. You could have been finished now. Furthermore, I wish I could go home and relax, but since my home is my job that is never going to work for me. Maybe I could go to someone else’s’ house to relax”.
If you’re married with children then you have had this conversation. That’s why I am pretty shameless about writing it. I can’t be too embarrassed writing a pretty generic conversation that sums up one of the biggest sources of stress in a family. Families are work. Hard work.
This conversation isn’t about a power struggle. Unfortunately, that’s how most people see it. This conversation is really about appreciating the unique gifts people bring to a family, most notably, the role of mother. The old cliché “A mans work comes and goes with the sun, but a woman’s work is never done” is the most accurate and telling insight into the gender issue ever spoken or written. Sisyphus was based on a housewife.
I say based because he didn’t get the full impact of being a housewife. Yes, a housewife pushes a proverbial rock uphill everyday and it falls every night. We call it housework. Just getting the basics done, laundry, floors, and cooking, that’s the rock part. The reason Sisyphus is only based on a housewife is because if he had been an actual housewife, he would have been responsible for raising children while he tended his rock duties everyday.
The conversation I have with my husband, is about the exhausting nature of my job everyday. It’s also about how down I can get when I start to wonder about how many times I have tried to get up the hill with my one year old screaming four or more hours in a day or my first grader throwing a tantrum. It’s about pushing up the last part of that hill at the end of the day with your children ignoring you request after request or arguing with you about fairness when all you want is some laundry off the floor or teeth brushed or even a bath time without the near drowning of a younger sibling at the hands of the older. Every night, I am so glad when I reach the top of the hill, that I just fall into the couch and I am grateful I survived.
I tried to explain this idea to a childless friend. They laughed and then made a curious face and asked “But wouldn’t the kids be the rock?” Naive. Very naïve. No childless friend, the children are not the rock. It’s the housework that is constant. It’s always the same weight, always the same work, it’s ongoing and never ending. My children change moment by moment. Think of the children as the weather. Some days Sisyphus pushes the rock on a clear sunny day and some days, the sky turns dark while a hailstorm (complete with flying soccer ball) pelts you in the face. There's a reason hurricane names remind us all of children we know. My children are a lot of things, but consistent or predictable are not involved. Ever.
My husband finally realized that. I am not sure when it happened, but he began to understand that I am not whining or complaining about my job when I need help. Nor am I negating his hard work. But we have very different types of jobs and mine is truly the harder of the two. The only time I ever have off from my job is the time he gives me. He’s my substitute. He is the only person who can help me relax or add to my stress level. Now that he understands this, he tries to be more generous about how much time I have. He gives me more. Since he began to help me more at night, I have had time to read or write. My ability to be myself, even for just a half hour or so, has translated into a more relaxed, refreshed wife and mother. Things have shifted to lighter, easier, calmer and more pleasant. Our family has subtly changed for the better.
I don’t make any money for what I do but I figured out my monetary value. A cleaning service would cost me fifty dollars a day. If I paid a taxi to drive the kids and myself around, I’d be looking at forty to seventy dollars a day depending on the day. There would be an occasional $100 fare for special shopping expeditions about once a month. A cook for my meals would easily run me a hundred bucks a day. Nannies in my neighborhood make ten bucks an hour and I would need nine hours if I worked full time as a teacher. So somehow, if we contracted all of my roles out, we would be shelling out approximately three hundred dollars a day. And that doesn’t even include my part time stints as nurse, doctor, psychologist, secretary, travel agent or reporter. So I am worth roughly four hundred dollars a day. Four hundred dollars a day times seven days a week. That’s $2,800. Multiply that by 52 and I’m worth $145,600. WOW! Not too shabby for an unemployed stay at home mom. I’m the only person I know worth more if I’m schizophrenic. My husband can’t afford to lose me. Maybe he did the math too and decided he couldn’t afford to fire me. It’s cheaper to be nice and help out once in a while.
“I am so exhausted, I have so much work to do and I am just too tired. I want to sit down and do nothing.” says my husband.
“I understand. I’m exhausted too. Can you bathe the kids while I clean the kitchen?” I ask.
“I’d rather not. I just told you I’m really tired and I don’t want to do anything”
“Well I’m really tired too and I want to sit down and do nothing too, but we have kids to feed, bathe, and put to bed. Could you help me get through this?”
“I work all day to support this family. I make money so we have everything we need. I just need some time. I deserve to come home and relax if I want”.
“Well I work around the clock. I am still breastfeeding at 5 am. I don’t even get a break in my sleep. And I work all day making sure you have clothes to wear and food to eat and that your home environment isn’t condemned by a health inspector, and I pay the bills, and organize all four schedules for every person in this family and try to give the kids the emotional support they need so they don’t become drug addicts or snipe shooters, or apathetic non voters. I need more than some time. I need some help. I just want you to bathe the kids. You could have been finished now. Furthermore, I wish I could go home and relax, but since my home is my job that is never going to work for me. Maybe I could go to someone else’s’ house to relax”.
If you’re married with children then you have had this conversation. That’s why I am pretty shameless about writing it. I can’t be too embarrassed writing a pretty generic conversation that sums up one of the biggest sources of stress in a family. Families are work. Hard work.
This conversation isn’t about a power struggle. Unfortunately, that’s how most people see it. This conversation is really about appreciating the unique gifts people bring to a family, most notably, the role of mother. The old cliché “A mans work comes and goes with the sun, but a woman’s work is never done” is the most accurate and telling insight into the gender issue ever spoken or written. Sisyphus was based on a housewife.
I say based because he didn’t get the full impact of being a housewife. Yes, a housewife pushes a proverbial rock uphill everyday and it falls every night. We call it housework. Just getting the basics done, laundry, floors, and cooking, that’s the rock part. The reason Sisyphus is only based on a housewife is because if he had been an actual housewife, he would have been responsible for raising children while he tended his rock duties everyday.
The conversation I have with my husband, is about the exhausting nature of my job everyday. It’s also about how down I can get when I start to wonder about how many times I have tried to get up the hill with my one year old screaming four or more hours in a day or my first grader throwing a tantrum. It’s about pushing up the last part of that hill at the end of the day with your children ignoring you request after request or arguing with you about fairness when all you want is some laundry off the floor or teeth brushed or even a bath time without the near drowning of a younger sibling at the hands of the older. Every night, I am so glad when I reach the top of the hill, that I just fall into the couch and I am grateful I survived.
I tried to explain this idea to a childless friend. They laughed and then made a curious face and asked “But wouldn’t the kids be the rock?” Naive. Very naïve. No childless friend, the children are not the rock. It’s the housework that is constant. It’s always the same weight, always the same work, it’s ongoing and never ending. My children change moment by moment. Think of the children as the weather. Some days Sisyphus pushes the rock on a clear sunny day and some days, the sky turns dark while a hailstorm (complete with flying soccer ball) pelts you in the face. There's a reason hurricane names remind us all of children we know. My children are a lot of things, but consistent or predictable are not involved. Ever.
My husband finally realized that. I am not sure when it happened, but he began to understand that I am not whining or complaining about my job when I need help. Nor am I negating his hard work. But we have very different types of jobs and mine is truly the harder of the two. The only time I ever have off from my job is the time he gives me. He’s my substitute. He is the only person who can help me relax or add to my stress level. Now that he understands this, he tries to be more generous about how much time I have. He gives me more. Since he began to help me more at night, I have had time to read or write. My ability to be myself, even for just a half hour or so, has translated into a more relaxed, refreshed wife and mother. Things have shifted to lighter, easier, calmer and more pleasant. Our family has subtly changed for the better.
I don’t make any money for what I do but I figured out my monetary value. A cleaning service would cost me fifty dollars a day. If I paid a taxi to drive the kids and myself around, I’d be looking at forty to seventy dollars a day depending on the day. There would be an occasional $100 fare for special shopping expeditions about once a month. A cook for my meals would easily run me a hundred bucks a day. Nannies in my neighborhood make ten bucks an hour and I would need nine hours if I worked full time as a teacher. So somehow, if we contracted all of my roles out, we would be shelling out approximately three hundred dollars a day. And that doesn’t even include my part time stints as nurse, doctor, psychologist, secretary, travel agent or reporter. So I am worth roughly four hundred dollars a day. Four hundred dollars a day times seven days a week. That’s $2,800. Multiply that by 52 and I’m worth $145,600. WOW! Not too shabby for an unemployed stay at home mom. I’m the only person I know worth more if I’m schizophrenic. My husband can’t afford to lose me. Maybe he did the math too and decided he couldn’t afford to fire me. It’s cheaper to be nice and help out once in a while.
posted by momwithamission at 2:09 PM
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