Sat, 2010-01-02 13:40

Breathtakingly apt and highly-fed-up non-mommy-blogger rant from Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist directed at individuals who imagine that stay-at-home parenting must be the most fulfillingest thing ever.

[A]ll you people who say you’d love to stay home all day with your kids if you could, you are completely full of shit.

I know because I was living at the poverty line in NYC while I stayed home with my kids. That’s how important it was to me to stay home. I wanted to be with them for every moment, be a great mom, all that. So I did it no matter what – no financial situation could have stopped me.

...

For all you guys who Twittered back to me that I’m a bad mom and that I should love being home with my kids, here’s a link for you: CEOs who are on Twitter. Because let me tell you something: None of these people needs to earn the money they are earning. They have enough money. They can stay home with their kids. But instead, they are at work.

She said it here.

Lemme tell ya something. Being a stay at home parent actually really is rewarding, cool, and fun. And also really, really stultifyingly, oppressively, mind-numbingly fucking boring.

Not one.

Not the other.

Both.

And yeah, if you wanted to do it?

You would.

But you’d have to want to do it enough.

But like most people with a choice if you haven’t you probably wouldn’t.

Trunk puts the issue very bluntly

How about approaching all those guys with Blackberries at soccer games? Let me ask you something. Do those guys check their email when they’re getting a blow job? Of course not. Do you know why? Because it’s INTERESTING. They are checking their blackberries during soccer because soccer is boring. The kids can’t figure out where the goal is. The kids (and their parents) lose interest. They want snacks more than they want to learn soccer. They are cute, yes. But even cute gets boring.

Now multiply preschool soccer by 23 hours a day, 6.5 days a week, 312 days a year, for four to sixteen years. That’s your window for boredom. The rest of the time is adorable, heartwarming, and totally fulfilling, sure. And on balance a lot of people find that worth it…

But in the grand scheme of things, people, it’s not a lot of time. Which, again, is why most people who say how much they’d love to do it but have a choice? Don’t.

I probably wouldn’t have become a blogger if I hadn’t been a stay-at-home dad. Because blogging you can do in 15 minute increments. Between loads of laundry. Between cranks of the “neglect-o-matic.” While the oven pre-heats or the Annie’s mac-n-cheese noodles simmer. While they’re playing with the most fascinating thing in the house you can safely let them play with — the tupperware containers in the kitchen drawer. While they trash their room playing dress-up with their playdate. (If you ever want to know why there seem to be so many “mommy” bloggers that should be your first clue. If you ever wonder why they seem so starved for contact that should be your second clue. That they so often have such narrow focuses should be your third. And in retrospect, that the majority sex is a primarily domestic activity, even though that doesn’t fit our romantic and/or socioeconomic notions of it, might be one clue about the narrow focus of my blog.)

But here’s where Trunk nails that one too — however boring, or bored, or distracted you think you can get the consequences for actually letting something slip can be anything from embarrassing to dire

as soon as your mind wanders too far, something bad happens. For example, I took the kids on a hike yesterday, taking a coat for myself but not for them. Because I checked out. Because I wanted to think about things that are more interesting than coats. This is normal behavior.

If you have a battery-operated Swingomatic instead of the kind you have to rewind every 15 minutes you really will neglect them for too long. If you “close your eyes for just a moment” you’ll find yourself wakened (in a panic) by the sound of little fingers working with awesome determination to figure out the babyproof/earthquake latch on the cleaning-supply cupboard door under the sink.

(Oh yeah, and while we’re on the subject of stay-at-homing it if every now and then you say what the heck and toss a couple of broccoli or carrot ends into the disposal your otherwise perfectly lovely partner or spouse, fresh home from an invigorating day at work and a commute full of NPR updates will happen to be passing through will brightly admonish you “please, hon, that goes in the compost bucket.” As if you weren’t the one who not only daily filled the compost bucket but regularly emptied into the yard-waste container, and took that out to the curb every Tuesday night for collection. But I digress…)

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve loved being a stay-at-home dad, and still do. But I guarantee I haven’t loved every minute. And anyone who, like the twittering twit who prompted Trunk’s tirade, thinks you should, or thinks they would, or (worse!!!) should you complain says “sorry your kids are a burden, send them to OH, we’ll enjoy them for who they are” — where by “we” Trunk deduces they evidently mean “my wife” — is indeed an asshole.

Which is all a long, involved way of explaining my basis for so appreciating Trunk’s awe-inspiring flame.

—-

One quibble: I happen to think Trunk slightly misses the mark when she hauls out the studies showing that having children don’t make people happy — Jefferson seems to have been right that happiness is best found in pursuit rather than an objective in its own right.

A burden voluntarily shouldered is not as heavy as one imposed. Having chosen to shoulder it imposes constraints as real as a poison-hotline call or “together night” interrupted by night terrors (“night terribles” as my daughter called it.) And once chosen those burdens become background against which small moments shine. Sometimes brilliantly and unforgettably.

It is another thing entirely, though, when the burden is chosen for you rather than chosen by you — to have them allocated as your lot, or fate, or “natural instinct,” or “natural place,” or even “God says.” And when those who have themselves neither faced the imposition nor made the choice, and thus have no clue, say what they think you should enjoy? Well you can probably see how that would tend to make one seem… humorless. Angry, even. And inclined to lob flaming posts.

(Via Amber Rhea’s Tumblr feed.)