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"housewifery ennui"
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Anonymous
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Folks, I think I need an attitude adjustment.
I am recently a stay at homer with one 3yo daughter and another wee one on the way. Not employed out of the home by my own choice -- just circumstance, really, until I birth baby #2 and take some maternity leave until looking for new job. So the situation is this: Basically, I'm not totally loving it. I find I am waaaay more type-A regarding home cleanliness and tidiness than maybe my hubs can stand. For example, if I spend an hour or two cleaning the kitchen, bending over to hand-wipe the floor (and believe me, with this belly, it's no easy task), I get PISSED to find someone (there is only one) has come into the kitchen to make themselves a sandwich and left crumbs and smears all over. GRRRRRR!!!!! Folding laundry -- and the laundry never ends -- is snoozeville. Actually, putting it away is worse. And it happens three/four times a week. Vacuuming -- see kitchen. Please take off shoes unless you're a guest, in which case please make yourself comfortable. Peeing -- good lord, why are pube hairs and pee drips everywhere on the toilet rim? Didn't I just clean that YESTERDAY? I think what's happening is I see family members (e.g., husband) doing things like "use his home" as just another way to introduce more repetitive cleaning tedium into my week. I don't enjoy it. 
Attitude adjustment or... a job out of the home ASAP that pays enough for someone else to do this stuff! Counting down the minutes to March 2011! 
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Anonymous
| Is this new? Have you always been type a/hubby slob or are you more anal now that you are home and it's mire of your 'job'? Did you have a cleaning person before? |
Anonymous
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Don't tell US... tell HIM! He needs to remember that you are the shape of a Weeble, and since he can't take the fetus off your hands (or your bladder) for a few hours, he needs to at the very least not pee on the seat.
Your job is childcare, which extends to meals and laundry and general tidiness, if there's time left over after making sure the kid is safe and happy and stimulated and loved. His job is to NOT make yours harder. You don't go to his office and re-arrange his file drawers and delete his browser bookmarks, do you? |
Anonymous
| Ennui can exist on many levels and for many different circumstances. The opposite of your story is the spinster aunt who never married, had no children, enjoyed her gardening and yet later in life, wondered where all the time had gone. One of those old ladies stayed sad, complained about back pains and forgot her youth. Another old lady reveled in her garden, laughed when she thought about the old times, continued to wear things that didn't match and enjoyed the sunshine. Your reality is what you make it. It can be good or bad or a little of both. But it IS WHAT YOU CHOOSE. Buck up. |
Anonymous
How far along are you with the pregnancy? It may be third trimester restlessness more than anything else. Either way, once DC#2 comes you'll be too busy to care about crumbs!! 
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Anonymous
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OP here. Yup, have always been anal about cleanliness since I 'grew up' (read: graduated from gradual school -- before then I indulged in highly competitive slobbishness, but always on my own territory!). I do NOT go into his office, thank god we each have our own. I close the door to his. We actually decided against a rather nice home because the grand office had pretty glass doors visible from the entry foyer, and since he works from home most of the time, he would have very reasonable claim to it. But, good lord, looking at all manner of wires and papers piled on cheap-looking (don't get me wrong, I love me some IKEA) furniture would have driven me up a wall.
Husband has always been blissfully unaware of certain kinds of cleanliness. He's much more laid back about that kind of stuff. Maybe I need to put down the "Traditional Home" and "Martha Stewart" magazines. Hard for me to lower my housekeeping standards since (a) our former nanny before we moved was a domestic goddess who presented us with a washed, powdered child and clean house at end of the day and (b) if I'm not bringing in an income, shouldn't I at least be able to do the same? Big difference: former nanny did not complain and basically rolled with it. Ha!
Yes, the belly has me moving at half-speed. And, indeed, I like to get my hour+ walk in almost every day. Oh, and I don't sleep at night -- heartburn and restless leg syndrome or something -- which has me coasting on about 4 hours of sleep a night, half what I would normally aspire to. Disclaimer: my hubs makes dinner. I never do. For this I love him oodles. (But not enough to overlook the relentless pubes and sticky piss on the toilet rim, apparently.) |
Anonymous
| Lighten up!! |
Anonymous
| Another DCUM Princess. Sheesh! Where do they come from? |
Anonymous
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I think there is something going on besides a newfound concern over your husband's lack of tidiness.
In the work world, many (most?) people work jobs where you work on a project, you complete it and declare victory, you move on to another project - maybe a bigger one - and tackle that. It was for me. When I worked, we had maybe five or six projects going at all times, and one deliverable or another was always getting done, after which we got to celebrate and move on to bigger and better things. So work life was like a journey from one point to the next destination, and so on. Staying at home is not like that. It is more like the ocean. The tide comes in, and the tide goes out. Kids get fed and then fed again. It's up in the morning, out and about, down for naps, down for bed and then do it all over tomorrow. The adage "a woman's work is never done" was meant to describe this perpetual doing and undoing of things. (I know, the adage is sexist. Hey, I'm a SAHD). But it's not all scrub, rinse, repeat. Just like the ocean changes with the time of year and beaches grow and decline, you do get some things done that are more permanent. It's just that those things happen on a very long time frame. But they are good things. Your kids grow, you build friendships, improve your home, you take care of things that you could never touch when you were working, and you get to have special times with the most important little people in your life. Enjoy the difference, and laugh a lot. And when you see PBJ fingerprints all over your newly cleaned counter, just think of the sea. |
Anonymous
Thank you thank you thank you for this! I'm not OP, but I'm also a recent SAHM. I used to be an attorney and am havin a tough time adjusting to not having the goal-oriented, type-A style days. Thanks for this big picture perspective! |
Anonymous
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Staying home is not for everyone.
It sounds like you have a goal in mind to get back to work when your new baby is a few months old. Keep that goal in mind and try to enjoy the time you have now. |
Anonymous
| Great post, 8:33. |
Anonymous
| Ditto. Thanks 8:33! I'm not a SAHM (wish I could be), but sometimes even a Saturday can seem awfully long when I realize that I'm reading Moo Baa La La La for the 25th time and in the same cycle of toys, feeding, napping and trying to squeeze every single second of togetherness with my baby that I can into a weekend. What a wonderful description and analogy. |
Anonymous
| It probably helps to remember why you decided to SAH. I WOH FT and each time I find myself wishing I SAH or WOH PT, I remind myself of why I made the choices I did. |
Anonymous
| Great post, 8:33. I'm bookmarking it to remind myself of these truths!! |