spynotes ::
  February 08, 2006
Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me

Last night in my dreams I missed a train, I couldn�t find one of my shoes, I was late getting AJ to school, I lost an earring, I missed another train and spent an hour looking for the newspaper in the bushes. Apparently Dr. Freud thinks I need to finish the diss already.

After all that, it is no small wonder that I woke up as rigid as a corpse with tension. I rolled over and my spine cracked for a full five minutes. I think I scared my husband out of bed. I did get a nice shoulder rub, though.

I did take an hour off this morning after dropping AJ at school to buy my book group�s latest novel (Orhan Pamuk�s Snow ), which I will probably not have time to read, and a couple of tidbits for my boys for Valentine�s day. AJ�s getting heart shaped noodles, which he will love beyond reason. I�m not talking about the rest and you can�t make me.

I also took a little time off to be annoyed by Judith Warner�s Op-Ed piece in the NY Times. Lobbying for the government to tell us how to think about �the problem that has no name� is not going to get us anywhere, not that we shouldn�t continue to push for better childcare, better benefits and more flexible work arrangements. I just don�t happen to think the federal government is the answer to any of these problems. If we�re waiting for them to take action, we�re not going to get anywhere.

I don�t really have anything new to say about this debate. I am just getting tired of the complaining without the doing. It�s time for some new models. Points go to Warner, though, for her refusal to class child care with household chores, even though her reasoning (�in a happily balanced life, it doesn�t feel like a chore�) is perhaps a shade idealistic, if only in the notion that we have any idea what a happily balanced life is, let alone how to accomplish it.

Really, it�s this issue of a �happily balanced life� that is the crux of the matter. Women can work; women can stay home. The one thing they can�t do, according to Warner, is live a �happily balanced life.� There will always be too much housework, too much childcare, too much time away from home, and too much time at home. While Warner rightly identifies child care and part time work arrangements as part of the problem, that is still only part of the problem. To be truly happily balanced, we also need to find a certain amount of appreciation for all that we do, and that includes housework. I�m not saying you have to love cleaning out the cat box more than you love teaching quadratic equations to middle schoolers, but at the end of the day, aren�t you happy when you don�t have to step in cat shit? I thought so. We don�t have to love the process AND the product of work all the time. Sometimes the product is enough. Balance in all things, grasshopper.

7 people said it like they meant it

 
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