Friday, December 30, 2011

Confessions of an Idiot Savant


I enjoyed seeing all my “big kids” over Christmas – as did the little guys.  Austin and Trevor are missing having human jungle gyms over whom to clamber, and Fred and I just don’t fill the bill. Elyse took off for Europe the day after Christmas, and we’re previewing what the family will be like without her as she leaves in late January for a job in Dubai.
As excited as I am for her big adventure, I am melancholy over another child moving to far off places. Dustin is pretty well settled in LA, and even when he thinks about another job, he doesn’t seem to think about this coast. Joe is not so far, in Philly. However, while he’s technically in my time zone, in reality, I’m getting ready to wake up as he’s getting ready to call it a night, so we don’t connect too often. Another way in which I don’t connect with my kids is in our preferred life paths. The biggies are about to turn 23, 25, and 27. When I was those ages, I was getting married, and giving birth to my first and second children, respectively.
My kids show no inclination to settle down, seeing that as something to consider in their 30s if at all. Although I celebrate their ability to see the life choices they want and to make them (and I would never, ever, ever suggest anyone have children unless they were absolutely certain they wanted them), the fact remains, that on a visceral level, I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that none of my kids seem to have the same desires for family that I had at their ages. It may be that a close-up look at child rearing via Austin and Trevor has made them more self-aware than I ever was. Certainly, my own desire for having children in my life has been guided more by a genetic pull to procreate than by a rational consideration for the ideal family size.  Every time I hear Fred, Austin, and Trevor yelling at one another – apparently the preferred mode of communication among people of their particular branch of the Y chromosome – I wonder if I ever made any rational decisions whatsoever. It’s funny how one can both academically bright and fundamentally idiotic, but I seem to have perfected that mix.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Reach for the Stars...and the Vacuum


I’m training my younger boys to clean up. While raising my older three kids, I did most of the cleaning. I ran a home daycare business, and cleaning up kind of seemed like part of the job description. When I started teaching mid-way through Elyse’s fourth grade year, I did not immediately conscript the kids into service (the boys were in 6th and 8th grade at the time, and I guess it was one of those deals where I thought it would be easier just to do it myself). Eventually, they all learned to do their own laundry, mostly because I refused to corral it off the floors in order to get it in the washer.
Now, older and wiser, I try to have Trevor and Austin help out every week, even if it means I spend more time insisting than they actually spend cleaning. Their job is to dust so I can vacuum. They aren’t the most thorough cleaners one could “hire,” but at least they’re getting the idea that maintaining the house is not 100% my territory, and they’ll make better husbands for it someday. 
When I was growing up, the assumption that cleaning was women’s work was definitely part of the atmosphere, and even though my husband is a “stay-at-home” dad right now, he’s quick to inform me that that doesn’t make him “a housewife,” so apparently he grew up breathing the same poisonous, pre-feminist fumes.
 I was very careful to name all my kids names that would be comfortable on an executive desk-plate. When I read them books with stereotyped roles, I changed the words. But somewhere along the line, I missed the boat. I should've taught them to value keeping a house clean while I was teaching them to reach for the stars.