Feb
23
2010
The Domestication of Yours Truly
Author: administrator(Alternate title: “Domestic” is not a four-letter word, because it actually has eight letters.)
It dawned on me this morning that it’s been seven years since I made the bold step to leave a job I loved to become a stay-at-home mom. I have been hard-pressed to explain why I did this; the easy answer is that my mom stayed home with my brother and I before we were school-aged and I wanted to try to provide something similar for my own kids. So with Max cookin’ in the proverbial oven (little did I know he’d require an extra TEN DAYS of baking time) I walked away from a field that impassioned me and students I adored for an amble on the unknown side.
In retrospect, I think it’s fair to say it was a good move overall. My children are not ruined; on the contrary, they are pleasant little boys who are exceedingly smart (though I give nature at least as much credit as nurture on this point.) But I would not say I am the “type” who excels at being a full-time homemaker. I have learned just how ill-suited I am to this job the hard way. For instance, I hate noisiness. I don’t know why I didn’t know that before moving to this career track, but…well, have you HEARD my children? They’re exceedingly loud. I am often impatient, which is not very compatible with raising children. Another example would be my perfectionism. It’s really hard to be perfect in this job, and I’ve had to get up-close-and-personal with this compulsion in order to live with myself in the face of the inevitable imperfection. And one other illustration would be the stark difference between my preferred college student or professional woman mode (ie: busy with many, many activities, responsibilities, and social interactions) and the adult reality of what works for my family (ie: evenings spent at home with family dinner, homework, and cleaning to be done before the early bedtime.) Also, I used to consider it thoroughly un-modern for women to stay home and cook and clean and have babies. Why should women pursue domestic endeavors; weren’t we worth more to society? I disdained Martha Stewart while secretly admiring her product.
But nothing proves my point more convincingly than this: I used to hate cooking. HATED it. I had about 4 things I could cook and it was all I cared to do. Before children, Joe and I ate out more often than not and that suited me just fine. I was a heckuva baker but that wasn’t very helpful. But after Max came around, and especially once we were expecting Ollie and made the step to expand and renovate our kitchen to accommodate a space for family meal consumption, I realized: I’m going to have to cook now. I have run out of excuses.
So, I did. I began cooking almost every single meal at home, with the help of my beautiful new kitchen and a husband who came home from work and took the kids off my hands so I’d have the time and attention to devote to the development of my craft. And it surprised me to learn that I was pretty good at it. And, after awhile (and an introduction to the blog that changed my attitude toward cooking for my family) I have actually come to enjoy it. A LOT. I’m not about to run off to culinary school or anything, but I enjoy finding recipes and, in my typical ballsy fashion, trying them for the first time on occasions when most would turn to their tried-and-true dishes. It never fails but I break out the new stuff for dinner parties and holidays and such. What can I say…I live on the edge.
I make my own bread…we haven’t purchased bread from the store in years. I make my own salad dressings. I often make up dishes on the fly, now that my confidence has grown. And most recently, I began making my own yogurt.
YOGURT. I make it. It’s insanity. Simple, cheap insanity.
I would never have imagined seven years ago that my life would be what it is today…that I would be who I am today. I still hate to clean the bathroom and do the eleventy-billion loads of laundry that now dominate my life (wish I could have warned my seven-years-ago self about THAT one) but I suspect there are virtually no people living on earth that like those things. And most importantly, I think, my attitude toward those who do this job I do has dramatically changed: we are no less intelligent, or driven, or modern than those women who work outside their homes. Nor are we any more special than those women who work full-time out of financial or psychological need. But I don’t want to keep downplaying what I do in every social scenario, answering the “what do you do?” query with, “Oh, I just stay at home with the kids.” There’s no “just” about it. It’s a challenging and valid thing that I do, and I want to give myself more credit for it. I provide good food and a welcoming home for my family and any guests who might come by. I teach my children. I work part-time and write whenever I can to hone my craft. When I look at it this way, I’m no less busy than my professional-teacher or college-aged alter-egos.
Plus, there’s better food here.
