6.30-7.30pm: f%$#! o’clock for every mother
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Even in the week of International Women’s Day, 6.30-7.30pm is still f%$#! o’clock for every mother. 6.31 pm. Second child is wailing because her one designated packet of skittles from the school chocolate drive has run out. You will have to grieve until you are over it, I dispassionately explain while cursing chocolate drives. First born has stormed off into bedroom and is trashing something for effect, because she has been banned from her computer time by provoking second child to crescendo wail to ear-shattering screech. 6.33 pm. I am seeking the emotional distance of desktop parenting to balance out the physical distance of their other parent being at a late-night meeting. But let’s call him “Dad”, because “parent” is a utopian fantasy of mothers and fathers equally contributing such that they become non-gender specific. 6.37 pm. Small ones have sought the emotional distance of the second series of I Dream of Jeannie. Therein they can fully indulge the fantasy of being all powerful by making things like oh I don’t know, people, while remaining sweet tempered, retaining spectacular midriffs, and being endowed with eye-lashes of such battering power they can sweep away household detritus in a blink and call upon the armies of ancient civilizations. 6.41 pm. Dad’s ailing mother has rung to update on the bile-duct infection operation of Dad’s hospitalised father. The cat has p-ssed in the rice cooker, the unread readers are strewn on the floor, there are unsold malteser boxes, lost pyjama bottoms, not enough skittles in the world, and Major Nelson still won’t marry Jeannie. 6.41 and a half pm. My, time flies when you’re having fun. Now for the burning question you may well be asking because I sure as hell am: where is the man in question? Depending on the number of domestic calamities accrued by Beep O’Clock, this very question might variously be muttered under my breath into the bubbling Bolognese, cast over my shoulder in the vague hope that it might smite someone who deserves it, or shrieked down the hallway at children making enough demands to overwhelm an entire village, let alone two “parents”. Two! Whose idea was that? Another brilliant though self-destructing social formation coming to us from killing-us-softly, carbonaceous, industrialised capitalism. I’ve come to suspect there is a veritable chorus of WHERE IS HE? — between 6.30pm and 7.30pm — hissed into switched off mobile phones. Not finding its mark this chorus instead makes its way like a toxic vapour through the gas outlets of every kitchen stove to relentlessly seep towards one bottomless and unchartered cavern of geosequestrated mothers’ rage. I muse if only we could harness that power for good like work-life balance, instead of evil like marriage breakdown. 6.47 pm. Hold that thought — the Bolognese is all boil and trouble. 6.58 pm. Waterlogged pasta and another burnt saucepan bottom to deal with. And all while I was about to raise a mothers’ army to seize control of the state and legislate first off for all “parents” to arrive home at a reasonable hour. 7.06 pm. Short of a mother’s revolution, while casting aspersions into my stove I have devised a truly revolutionary strategy. Perhaps we “parents” — I would say “mothers” but it would be unwarranted to be gender specific, wouldn’t it? Perhaps we “parents” of the scrubber-variety should go to these meetings too, with small wailing children in tow, their feet half into their pyjamas and their mouths whirring with dragon toothpaste. Perhaps right on the witching hour we should decamp to the serene and self-congratulatory ambience of late-night meetings, where those other “parents” of the suited variety action plan farewells and other weird rituals worthy of anthropological study. Wouldn’t you scrubber-parents out there like to march right in vested in the truer authority of parents who manage chocolate drives (and thereby the basis of the public education system), and stand on the table (just to be contrary, fully-clothed), and give these suit-parents a shrewish earful why aren’t you at home with your families? I mean, what is this business of holding meetings on weeknights? Someone out whoever started this trend, because I want to see him up against the wall clutching at the impotent armour of his dark grey suit. Then I want a reality TV show where mothers and children unceremoniously evict these late-night meeting moles from their cheese platter world of adult-child apartheid and return home to the women they elected to spend their lives with and the children they fathered, we thought, in more than one sense. From this International Women’s Day on the domesticated demand that work-related activities take place in work hours should be fought and won. Strictly Work Hours we could redub our kitchen-table revolution, the one dismantled in the 1980s by the false hopes of shattered glass ceilings and now awaiting a resurgence of mother alienation. 7.30 pm. We’re seeking the emotional proximity of cuddling up over stories. The readers are still languishing on the floor and there’s nobody home but us mothers. |
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25 Comments
Such is life in our ‘developed’ world, where we have isolated ourselves in these nuclear families. The nuclear family construct has been our response to the developed world belief of passing down our amassed inheritance to our immediate families…our offspring….and to do so, we have become isolated, stressed, and lonely.
Having had the chance to observe and experience the extended family experience of ‘developing’ countries, where housing supports 3-4 generations, where elders are revered, and children are supported within the wider family. Where aged care and childcare are a family responsibility, and people relate. Of course, the extended family living in the same locality is, as much as anything, a response to the uncertainty of a risky world but, ultimately, it is all about being human.
We have more certainty in our developed world. Certainty of income, health, education, and longevity of life. We amass our ‘things’ but, are we really happy? We need to learn again, what it takes to be ‘human’. Could it be possible to have both?
It’s a debate to have, but it’s not just the province of people with children! Only yesterday with colleagues and friends, I was discussing the fact that people with kids get to leave early (or on time, fancy that!) and those of us without children are expected to stay and toil through the night. Twas ever thus. Why is it just kids that give you the get out of jail free card? It’s about work-life balance for everyone, whatever their life choices.
It’s also about communication - Liz, didn’t you discuss with your partner what the deal would be about child-raising before you had them? I know people who decided not to have kids because they coudl not agree on sharing parenting. It’s really not news to share this with us - I find it tiresome and irritating for people to air their relationship issues as if it’s some big social issue we all need to mount the barricades over! It’s not even funny, but it sounds like you’ve lost your sense of humour about this stuff.
Hugh, your bile doesn’t advance the debate either - not having kids, having kids - both can be shallow and futile. Hell, any life choice can be futile, depending on how you live it.
And let’s not forget there are people who for various reasons don’t get to make this particular choice. No suitable partner comes along (and I’m not talking about bank balances, but character and values) so one never gets to decide whether or not the tremendous sacrifices associated with having children will be made. And I’m sure, in a loving, supportive, committed relationship, those sacrifices are worth it. But anyone who has children without weighing it up is a fool, and really has no one to blame but themselves.
The unfortunate thing about Liz Conor’s piece is that it comes across as if she didn’t know what she was getting herself in for, and like a conversation sh e should be having with her partner, who has the choice to simply decline said meeting. I hope he reads the article. I wish I didn’t have to.
Don’t worry Liz, with that cheerful attitude you’ll soon be a single parent anyway!
Oh boy, you people are so ungenerous?
I understand. But in our household both my husband and I have nights away from home and the dreaded witching hour. I chair an NGO so management committee meetings are at night and he studies.
I am about to give it up (I have been doing it for three years) because I now realise that both me and our household is too stressed at times. And I only have one very delightful but demanding three 1/2 year old.
Yes this is an important debate to have around when work happens. In todays SmartCompany their feature article is about Women making it to the top and included is an insight from Margaret Jackson: “Margaret Jackson says she learnt to say no to early breakfast meetings. The repercussions? The board would simply schedule the meetings at 9am.” Chairing the board gives you the power obviously.
How would your workplace respond to this demand?
If my house was like that I wouldn’t come home either.
I know it is extremely vexing when authors who’ve had their say claim more space, but it is true that this piece unfairly blames my besieged and beauteous beloved for late-night meetings that, despite his best efforts of rescheduling, he can’t control. So I wrote a Coda.
10.56pm. The man in question drags himself up the stairs like a drunk cat. He has been sitting on a panel in Cheltenham and is utterly wrung out. When I query how, ‘not being home to make dinner’ turned into coming home at 11pm, he explains that the panel went so late because he told the other members he was ‘not available’ on Saturdays. I tell him he has made one small step for man, and one giant step for womankind and that he is my hero. But the poor bastard is already asleep.
I dont mean to sound self-righteous here but I have two children, now 8 and 11, and I’ve never really experienced witching hour. Sure everybody gets tired at the end of a busy day but when I was the parent doing casual shifts and part-time/freelance work I made sure the first thing that happened when we got home was the children were fed. Some days it was at 4.30, other days 6.30, sometimes later. Now I’m the one working full-time while Dad is at home. It is a big adjustment but we are all coping. Pour a glass of wine, cook some dinner or if you can’t be bothered doing that make them a sandwich, cut an apple, give them a plate of cheese. It really doesn’t matter as long as they eat something. If you are too tired to read a story every night, so what, they will read to themselves soon enough or get a CD player next to the bed and put a talking book on or introduce them to the wonders of old jazz, Beatles classics and 80s disco. Hell, let them watch The Simpsons. When their dad worked late or when I now do the kids stay up to see the late-arriving parent. it drives us a bit nuts but what the hell. Children are so precious. Don’t hate your partner for their job. You won’t have both forever. Enjoy life. Lower your standards, remember you don’t have to be perfect.
And by the way, yes I am a (step) parent of four, so I do a lot of cooking with the grommets around. I recently tought the youngest, a lad of 12, to cook a whole bunch of recipes and it’s broadened his previously pretty fussy tastes quite well. I don’t know how old your kids are but involving them in cooking when they’re old enough solves two problems - they’re not distracting you from the task at hand and they’re able to pick up quite a lot of the time-consuming bits of cooking (eg peeling potatoes).
It sounds like you’re cooking your bolognese at too high a temperature. Fry up the onions, garlic, meat and herbs before adding the tomato paste and tomatoes and veggies and you only need to get it to a simmer at hottest. If it comes off the boil, no biggy. No reason to boil it furiously and risk burning it. Pasta is more difficult to cook if you’re distracted by the kids because you only have to be away from the pot for a couple of minutes and you’ve missed that point where it hits al dente and becomes waterlogged.
Liz, not vexing at all. Pleased to hear things resolved as well as they were going to. Of course, that won’t prevent it all happening again next month, but such is life.
It’s a debate to have, but it isn’t just about women, we need men to feel able in their workplaces to leave home to assist with families. I do the early shift in my household (brekky, lunches, two drops offs) and am lucky to ever make it to work by 945 at the moment. I’m fortunate to have a great workplace, and no, I don’t work in management, but I have fabulous managers. Dad gets up at 5.20am to be in work by 7am so he can leave at 3.30pm and do the post-school pick up/child care and get dinner on table. It’s chaotic at times, but works for us. Unfortunately our I think our experience of our workplaces is perhaps unusual.
What part of this didn’t you get when you decided to breed?
And why must those of us who are sensible enough to avoid it be subjected to your tawdry suburban misery?
I’m appalled that a perfectly valid rant on the blurring of work/home boundaries has been critiqued as a whinging turn by a non communicative wife.
Listen guys if we could all read the future, our lives would very different. However most of us mere mortals don’t know we’ve got a problem until we’re in the middle of it and then we have to work out the best way to cope. In the abstract work/life balance is such a GREAT idea. But in practise it mostly gets swamped by the avalanche of detail involved in surviving in our busy, busy world.That’s not a good thing, its just reality. Liz, good on you for detailing the unrelenting demands involved in dealing with kids, meals, life, the universe and everything at the fag end of the day (or any time of the day if it comes to that) and wondering what adjustments in workplace demands would support more time for parents to actually spend enough time together to do all that communicating everyone seems to think is the solution, not to mention share the parentlng.
This described my evenings over many years too, but like Steven McKiernan, wrong gender! Liz, you really should have chosen a mate like Steven or me.
And as for Boredchick, I do feel sorry for you, to be trapped in such a shallow, futile existence.
Liz, you’ve just described my evenings, only the identities and genders have changed. What started out as a humourous twitter-style depiction of domestic life turned into a humourless rant over your failing relationship with your chosen male life-partner . Shit, I’m really sorry for you, but shouldn’t this rant be better directed to your partner? And rather than try and claim EVERY relationship is like this, get your own blog and try and make some of your wishes come true. Failing that you could sell advertising.
Yeah… I’d go with “what did you expect” (and “maybe if you didn’t feed them chocolate/sugar in the evening they might be easier to handle” etc), but - even from second-hand observation - kids are so much work and such frustrating little buggers that mothers should be allowed to vent as often as they want.
Good luck with the hubby. How’s the sex life?
I am at home !!!
I love this time of the day. Kids are home, you talk about your day, their day, to-morrow.
Sure it is always busy and at times chaotic.
Enjoy your kids, they are a long time grown up !!
Tedious thinly-disguised boasting. A sub-Brigid-Jones ‘zany’ rant. We are not interested in this faux self-deprecating nonsense.
Go Liz! Great to hear the truth about how hard it can be managing arsenic hour on your own (‘boasting’ Anna??? only if you think being a doormat is an achievement), whether male or female. Why is it so hard for some people to acknowledge that having kids is sometimes tough?
On the rags Liz ?
And work places are designed principally to get work done for either the public or private good. Their primary purpose is not to pussyfoot around the sacred cow of ‘working families’. Use some of the double income to buy some organisation.
Jenny - couldn’t agree with you more that it isn’t just people with kids who this debate should be about. And there is nothing to stop you from taking control of your life and just leaving on time. Having time for yourself. What is stopping you? Long ago Lisa Pryor in teh SMH wrote a column saying just the same thing to her colleagues - young ones leave early and enjoy!
Everyone - kids, no kids, young or old should seek out the option to work hard in work hours and enjoy their life outside of it. And keep the work hours to whatever you’re paid for .. and beyond that, whatever you think gives you balance. Ie: if you’re love work stay all hours, but if you consider work as merely a means to enjoying life, then work hard and then get out and enjoy.
Kelly, bidding to become an honoury bloke are you? Give over.
Readers may like to note this piece appeared on Dr Conor’s blog on 28 April 2008. I wrote to Crikey to point this out yesterday, and that I didn’t think this piece was newsworthy. Comment not published in today’s email.
cheers
For a “not interesting”, not “newsworthy” piece, it certainly generated a lot of feedback - and it so should have. Sometimes an anecdote carries a story better than a survey.
To the anti-children crowd, yes children are a source of pain and suffering, but they are also a source of joy and delight. And they are, sometimes, a source of grand-children - would that there were a way to skip straight to having grandchildren! (Disclaimer: I have neither children nor grandchildren, but I have eyes and ears.)
Once upon a time, male unionists fought hard for equal wages for women - out of male self-interest. They knew that otherwise, employers would prefer to hire women. Perhaps its time for the women’s movement (does it still exist?) to tackle working hours - out of female self-interest?