November 11th, 2009

Who Says Romance is Dead?

…If this conversation doesn’t end up on Lamebook, I don’t know what will.

archived under: All About The Hyphenated Husband, Comically Disturbing Thoughts, etc..., Conversations that Get Me Into Trouble

I Guess This is Why I Stay Married To ‘im

… Because he thinks giving him babies made me hotter, even after a cesarean scar and a stretchy vagina. What a weirdo. But we should all be so lucky.

(from a recent twitter convo in which I wax not-so-poetically to my twitter friends about my lost ability to jump on any adorable 22 yr old I see on the street. And no, I did not think MrJohnCC would be on Twitter that day, cause he never is.)

FeministBreeder: Do u ever see a hot 22 yr old and think to yourself "when did I get too old to fuck hot 22 yr olds?" Major bummer.

MrJohnCC: yet to see a 22 year old hotter than @FeministBreeder."

Feminist Breeder: @MrJohnCC – I'm SURE you see 22 yr old's hotter than me… they just ain't had yer babies.

MrJohnCC: that's why there aren't 22 yo's hotter than @feministbreeder. I know, I'm twisted.

………………. whatta man.

4 Comments

archived under: All About The Hyphenated Husband, Daily Adventures

Jonas says “Mommy said Bullshit.”

Yeah. Today is by far my most humiliating day ever as a parent. This trumps me crapping on the table while pushing my 10 lb baby out. This even trumps my 3 yr old yelling, in a crowded public restroom, "Mama, are you going CaCa?!!? You're going CaCa on the potty! Yay for Mommy!" and listening to all the other ladies in the neighboring stalls giggling under their breath. No, today was worse than any of that because today I saw a side of myself that makes me feel like a crappy parent.

Jonas's daycare teacher is no-nonsense. Every time I pick him up from daycare I feel like I'm going to be in trouble for something. Once it was because he peed his pants (and they have essentially a zero-tolerance policy on accidents.) On various occasions, the parents (as a group) have been lectured on making sure our 3 yr olds can wash their hands by themselves, button their pants, and zip their coats, all without assistance, so it's easy to feel inadequate around this woman.

Today, I was in big trouble. I went to pick the child up and the teacher said "We need to talk." Ruht-Ro. I have a hard time with confrontations, especially when I feel like I'm in trouble for something. My heart starts racing, the adrenaline is pumping, and I have to resist all urges to turn on my heel and start sprinting in the other direction.

The teacher says to me "I'm just gonna come right out and say this. Your son never talks, but today he stood up, said he had an announcement, and proceeded to tell the class 'Mommy said Bullshit!' – and when I asked him to repeat himself, he said it again, even louder – Mommy Said Bullshit!!!"

I'm mortified. My son is at preschool telling the class that I swear. And worse! Teaching them the swear words in the process! I know the teacher isn't lying because after we got into the car I asked him what he said at school today, and he repeated the exact phrase to me.

Obviously he's heard me say this word. I'm not going to try to deny it. I have a penchant for cursing like a sailor, and as much as I tried to curb my behavior once I became a mother, I have obviously not done a thorough enough job. Oh hell, let's face it. I don't even try anymore. I'm sure the children hear their father and I fighting (along with all the swear words spewing from my mouth in the process) and I'm sure this is adding to all the therapy they'll need someday. I have told their father on 16 million occasions that I wanted to divorce him if for nothing other than the fact that I do not ever want to let my children see or hear their parents fighting the way I saw this type of behavior when I was a child. It messed with me. But the hyphenated husband will not entertain the idea of divorce, so I feel trapped, and I act out like a child.

So there it is. I am just as white trash as the people that raised me. I am the bad parent I never wanted to be. I'm an embarrassment to the version of myself that was convinced I'd always be better than this. You can take a girl out of the trailer, but all the hard work, telling myself I'm different, the private school education, the 4.0 GPA, won't take the trailer out of the girl. I am no better than they.

So what now? Well, today is the first day that I've truly considered getting back on Zoloft. I've resisted the idea of being medicated simply to put up with my marriage and ease my temper, but I also realize that the "bullshit" sets me off a lot easier than it probably should. And my kids are seeing it all.

Who are these women who don't get driven insane by their husband? Who are these women who can look at a dirty floor, a floor that this husband has never thought to clean in 4 years of marriage, and not feel their blood boiling beneath the surface? I want to be one of those people. The problem is that my intensely feminist self sees "letting things go" as really just "putting up with things", and that I can't have. I don't "put up with" or "settle" for anything, and that's the only reason I was able to drag myself out poverty, and the only reason I was able to marry a man who wasn't a cheater and a wife-beater like every other woman in my family. I'm sure my husband is better than most, but I keep score, and if he's not putting in exactly what I think I deserve then we have problems. Big problems. But perhaps some Zoloft could gloss over some of those "big" problems, and help keep me from spewing expletives in front of my small children.

I suppose I could take this day and turn it into what they consider a "wake-up call." But really, I just want to pull my son out of pre-school and pretend the whole thing never happened. Today is not a good day for mental health.

*dialing the number for the doctor's office.*

30 Comments

archived under: All About The Hyphenated Husband, Daily Adventures, The Tale of Two Kiddies

The Feminist Breeder Goes to Philly

Like I mentioned last week, I'm headed out to the Philadelphia area to visit a vaccination production facility. (yes, GlaxoSmithKline did come through with the plane tickets and hotel room, so I'm really going.)

Now here's where you come in. I'm sure I'm not the only inquiring mind around these parts, so comment back with any questions YOU would have if you were going, and I'll add that to my research.

And if you live in Philly (I'm talking to you girl-friend, and others) then let me know if we can work out dinner or breakfast or something. I'm flying in on Thursday late afternoon, spending all day Friday either at this plant or commuting to/fro – then I'm flying straight out Friday evening.

I won't have a ton of time there, but the nice 30 hour break from my toddlers is well-timed. Jonas (the 3 yr old) peed all over my freshly-cleaned floor yesterday about 2 minutes after he got off the potty and Julesy (the 16 mo. old) has taken to screaming bloody murder every single time I sit down (apparently I'm not allowed anymore.)

I can't wait to see how the hyphenated husband handles the two for the day while I'm gone. If it's anything like the way he handles them when I sleep in on Saturdays, then the entire house will be ripped apart, he'll forget to feed them, and he'll be trying to put them down for a nap 20 minutes after they wake up. Of course, he's already recruited his mother to take care of the kids while he stays outside doing yard work so at least I know THEY will be taken care of. Lately I've been wondering why I even think he's such a great dad. He's really been pissing me off. He comes home from work a half hour late every day and then sits on Facebook while I try not to stick my head in the oven. That's where he was yesterday while I was making dinner and watching my toddler piss all over my clean floor. This isn't what I signed up for when we agreed that I'd stay home. I'm not Suzy Freaking Homemaker. And all I can do is bitch and yell about it, but that does no good.

So yeah… I'll go to Philly. And maybe I won't come back.

9 Comments

archived under: All About The Hyphenated Husband, Daily Adventures, My Travels Around The World, The Tale of Two Kiddies

Why Don’t Men Have a Choice? (Part 2 of 2)

Some time back I enjoyed a thought provoking post by a blogger I admire. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable by naming her outright, because in this post I am going to (gently, if I can) disagree with what she said (scratch that, she's given me permission to name her, so if you want to see who it is, make with the clicky-click on that link). I’m glad she posted what she did, because it was not something I had ever thought too much about before reading her position on it.

In her post (and I’m paraphrasing here) this blogger expressed her annoyance with people who had always asked what she wanted to “be” when she grew up. She claimed she had always wanted to be a mother. End of story. Simply put, she never wanted a career, unless that career was being a Mom. And she felt that anyone who thought that she needed a life plan outside of motherhood was being critical and disrespectful. After all, feminism is about the choice to be a mother or not, right?

I certainly think it’s just fine if a family agrees that one partner should stay home with the children. Sounds totally fair to me. Marriage is a partnership, and families need to figure out what works best for them.

But what I find problematic about her position is this: How can you decide you’re going to be a mother when you grow up – and not a wage earner – before you find the person who’s going to give you babies and support you? Do you know of a single man who got to decide this for himself as a child? With women, it’s expected that they should have this choice. With men, it’s expected that they won’t.

Picture this: Teacher asks a little boy what he wants to be when he grows up.

Little boy says: "A Stay at Home Dad."

Teacher says: "Okay, you want to be a husband and a father – great, admirable even – but what do you want to do, like, for money?"

Little boy says: "Nothing. I only want to be a house-husband."

Teacher: "Okay son, but you really need a backup plan."

Why does he need a backup plan? Well, not to be insensitive, but his plans in life rely on a whole lot of things that are entirely out of his control lining up perfectly for him. What if he doesn’t find a wife? What if they can’t have children? What if the person he falls deeply in love with either cannot support him, or she had decided at age 9 that she wanted to be the one to stay home? Who gets to stay home? Or what if his perfect wife loses her ability to work? What then? And let’s say all these things work out perfectly for the little boy. What does he do in the meantime? You know, that time between age 18 and whenever you meet your spouse? Surely he needs to make some cash while he’s waiting for Mrs. Right (and their offspring) to come along? Right?

But come on. Boys don’t get this choice. Okay, in some progressive relationships they do (like how mine started out) but this is not a societal norm. The fact is, when kids come along, and one person can afford to stay home, it’s usually assumed by everyone on the block that it will be the mom. People say “It’s her choice – that’s what feminism is all about.” But where was Daddy’s choice in the matter? Nobody ever mentions that Daddy should have gotten the option as well.

But why? Some would argue that mom is better at it, and I would say that is just not true in our house. My husband is just as good of a parent as I am. In some ways, he’s better. He’s more patient, and less jumpy. He doesn’t handle the minutiae the way my Type-A, over-achieving, aggressive personality does, but he’s also a lot more temperate and rational than I am. Who says the kids would be worse off with him (or any dad) at home?

I find the whole argument that “feminism is about choice” problematic in and of itself. That’s all I’m saying. I can’t quite figure out the solution to what I see as an unbalance, I just want to acknowledge that it’s there, and it’s strange to me.

These two posts aren’t meant to be any sort of hard line political statement on the issue (though I’m quite certain some people will read something into them and send me hate mail anyway.) They are merely meant to be a written catharsis about my guilt over quitting my job and subsequently putting all of the burden on my husband to pay the bills. Maybe if he made more money, and my joblessness was barely noticeable to our finances, I might not feel so bad. But when everyone talks about how feminism gave me the right to stay home with my kids, the equalist part of me just wants to know what sort of movement will give Dads the right to do the same thing?

I started to write a long list of things I think our society could do to “even” out the parenting roles, but I’m more interested in what you all have to say about this. Tell me – can you imagine a world where it was okay, expected even, for a boy to grow up with only the dream of becoming a Stay-at-Home-Dad? What do you make of that world?

(Before you comment, I will say that we can probably have a truly intellectual little conversation about this providing that nobody decides to take this as some attack on their Stay-at-Home-Mommyness. It's okay to be comfortable with your choice, but to also question the meat and potatoes of that choice at the same time. That's what I'm doing, and I hope you'll join me.)