Tell Me Again. Why Do We Want To Have It All?

For those of you old enough to remember, Aviance perfume used to have a commercial where a woman wearing slacks and a buttoned-down top would dance to a sexy little number about cooking breakfast, taking the kids to school, doing the laundry, fixing dinner, feeding the dog, cleaning up, and then still being desirable to her mate by bedtime.
That song became the theme for my generation of women.
Not only can we do it all—we are expected to do it all.
Somewhere along the line doing it all not only became our right—but now it appears to be our obligation. For thousands of years, men have been denying us females of the right to have it all; therefore, now that we have cracked that glass ceiling, we will do it all-dag nab it! Even if kills us!
Who was that woman who spearheaded this have-it-all-movement? I’d like to slap her!
All I’ve been getting out of this having-it-all-stuff is exhaustion.
I have been advised to prioritize. But then, the items at the top of my list keep shifting based on the crisis of the moment. While addressing one item on the list, the other items are neglected until lights and buzzers start going off to tell me that they can’t be neglected any longer. These alarms are directly attached to family.
Our mothers, who were fortunate enough to be discriminated against by the male population, didn’t have all these items on their lists.
Last night, I was talking to a friend. At nine o’clock in the evening, she hadn’t even been home. The house needed to be cleaned. With her mother arriving today for a visit, she predicted that she receive advise to quit her job to stay home and care for her family.
Our mothers don’t understand. How can they? They were from the Ice Age back when women weren’t free to run themselves ragged. They can’t understand why we run ourselves into the ground having it all: It’s because we can!
A couple of years ago, I emceed a mystery dinner production I had written for a local theater. That became the priority at the top of my list for a couple of weeks.
Trusting my husband, I turned the house and our family over to him. After the play was over and the audience went home, my family returned to the top of my list, at which point I transformed myself from playwright to crisis manager.
While in the midst of rehearsals, my son’s school teacher had sent a homework assignment home to me. It was to be a bonding experience for mother and son to write a paper about a Famous American Woman. With it due on Monday, it jumped to the top of my list at 9 o’clock Sunday night. Too bad my son was in bed and unable to bond with me while I researched our homework assignment.
At seven o’clock in the morning, with the deadline for our project looming overhead, I rousted him out of bed, and dictated “our homework” to him, only to find that it was to be completed on a form, which had disappeared soon after the assignment had landed in our house.
So, I wrote a note to the teacher claiming that my son (he’s a child, therefore irresponsibility is expected of him) misplaced my homework assignment.
Then it came time for coercing my son into his clothes to go to school. This was when I discovered that while my husband was in charge; his son discovered the joy of mud. I had to give Jack credit. He didn’t just let the shoes remain muddy. He washed them, and then let them sit without drying them. Three days later, they were still wet.
Note number two to the teacher went into my son’s bag. This time, I blamed his father for allowing Tristan to ruin his sneakers, which rendered them unavailable for gym.
The time to catch the bus was looming down on us. I whipped my son into his backpack, knelt to zip up his coat to protect him from the cold like the good mother I pretend to be, only to discover that he had holes in the knees of his pants!
That was when doing the laundry was moved to the top of my list. However, even Wonder Woman couldn’t have gotten his pants washed and dried in time for the bus.
I considered writing a third note to the teacher confessing to my ineptitude, but decided that there was still a chance to save my reputation as a semi-adequate mother. I put Tristan into a pair of pants from out of the laundry that appeared clean at a distance, as long as you didn’t have a bloodhound’s nose.
While I rushed Tristan to change his clothes, he asked why he couldn’t wear the torn pants.
Thinking of the two notes he already had that were meant to explain our family, I said, “Because if you do, your teacher is going to report me for neglect and I’ll go to jail!”
I could see his little mind digesting this information while I tried to make him presentable by combing his hair.
“What will happen to me if you go to jail?”
“You’ll get sent to a home to live with a bunch of other kids whose mothers have lost their minds.”
Seeing my party animal son’s eyes light up at the prospect of living in the party zone while I shared a cell with five other mothers who didn’t do their homework, I threw out, “And you’ll have to share all your toys!”
With that, the light was doused and another crisis was resolved.
Now, it’s time to move onto the next item on my list.

Well Kept Secret Revealed

Can you keep a secret? I had to find out the hard way. So, for you women out there who haven’t had children yet, here’s a news flash:
Moms don’t know everything.
Where this myth developed, I have no idea. Look at the first mother, the mother of man-kind: Eve. She’s the one who got her and her husband evicted for stealing fruit from the landlord’s prized tree. Clearly, she didn’t know what “Don’t touch that!” meant.
Somewhere, between Eve and today, a myth evolved that made us think that women who have children know it all. We don’t seem to put this pressure on women who don’t have children. (Maybe they’re smarter than we give them credit for.)
Of course, my mother knows everything. Since giving birth, I wonder if that isn’t necessarily because she’s my mother, but that her smarts came naturally.
Believing that mothers know everything, I just assumed that when I became a Mom I would assume great wisdom, most likely during childbirth. It would be bestowed upon me. I would instantly have the knowledge necessary to raise my son and show him the ways of the world.
If it wasn’t bestowed, then there must be something that the doctors would put in the IV in the maternity ward along with the epidural that would make that happen.
Well, it didn’t happen! I was as clueless when I left the hospital as I was when I went in. The only difference was that my family expected me to know it all, and with the expectation of wisdom comes great responsibility.
Have you noticed that fathers aren’t expected to receive this great wisdom when they are hit with parenthood? That’s because they already know everything—until it comes time to set up the entertainment center.
My first clue that this was indeed a myth should have been all the baby books out there with step by step instructions for child rearing. They even included diagrams. Of course, they all said the opposite of what my mom, who does know everything, said.
So I wasn’t bestowed with wisdom in the maternity ward. Yet, because I am now Mom, everyone thinks that I know it all—except my son! He knows the truth because I have failed every test he has given me, which is embarrassing considering that he doesn’t know how to drive yet.
The tests started in the crib with crying until Mommy picked him up. My mother warned me, “Don’t pick him up. Ignore him. He’s testing you.” If I picked him up, then he won and that put him in control. If I didn’t pick him up and let him cry until he fell asleep at his naptime, then I would have won and became the one in control.
So I didn’t pick him up, and he continued to cry and cry and cry.
What was I supposed to do? Sit there and listen to him cry?
News flashes went off in my head of my son in the clock tower with a rifle saying that he was driven to this because his mommy didn’t care about him. Divorces with him telling the marriage counselor that he couldn’t be intimate with his wife because his mommy withheld her love from him at naptime. Going from job to job and career to career to town to town in search of love in all the wrong places because I refused to give it to him!
He was doomed to become a burden on society, and it would be my fault!
Isn’t Mom the first one they blame when someone fails?
So, I saved my son’s marriage and career and failed his test. I picked him up. His laughter when I took him into my arms had a note of wicked satisfaction. My secret had been revealed to him.
But I have everyone else fooled! In my family, no one knows how to cook and clean and grocery shop and coordinate play dates like Mom. When our party animal son has his friends over, Mommy is the only one clever enough to manage the under-aged mob. At least that is what Daddy claims when he locks himself in the train room not to emerge until the dust settles.
From computers to appliances to VCR’s to DVD players to television to wireless networks to e-mail to cyberspace, Mom is the Motherboard in our household when it comes to technology. In their mind, my knowledge in this area is somehow connected to my parental status. It is because I am Mom. Therefore, I know everything. Therefore, when it is broken, call her first!
When it is lost—Mom knows where to find it! My husband will be in his office, in town, at his desk, and he will call me at the house to ask where his checkbook is—and I will know where it is (usually in my purse).
But, there is that one soul who knows that I don’t know it all. The one whose test I had failed. I see it in the way the corner of his lips will curl when I fail yet another one of his tests. Sometimes I fail just because I am too tired to take them.
Last winter, after a snow storm he claimed a cold on the first day back to school. The roads were still icy and so, rather that send our car down the ski jump to get him to the bus stop, I had let him stay home. Daddy had proclaimed that it was a test and I failed! I heard about my failure on this exam for days.
Last week, my son announced in the morning that he had a stomach ache. The smile on his lips when he made his claim, following it up with, “Can I stay home from school?” with a note of joyful anticipation told me that this was yet another test. I was determined not going to fail this one. So I sent him off to school proud to have passed.
Until day four came. At which point he didn’t wake up with a stomach ache, but I did as the touch of his virus hit me with a double whammy that put me in bed for the full weekend.
“Is this your stomach ache?” I accused him when he brought me a cup of tea.
The grin on his lips was followed by a chuckle that told me that somehow this five foot tall kid who had yet to complete high school had once again outsmarted me. I don’t know how. I’m still trying to figure that out.
I have to take solace in not receiving all this wisdom that I had expected to come with motherhood with this thought:
Okay, maybe I don’t know everything. But I was smart enough to have him for my son and I am smart enough to fail his tests out of a love that only a mother can give.
So I can’t be too dumb.

The Family Pack Mule

This summer, my family went to a Pittsburgh Pirates game. (they won) Before entering the stadium, we were herded through security for a bag search. While approaching the guard, my heart raced. The anxiety had nothing to do with any possible contraband that he may have found in my bag, but due to the volume of items that he would have to dig through in order to determine if I was dangerous to others, or just my back.
When I got to the guard, I opened the giant overweight purse and cracked, “It’s a Mommy bag.”
He laughed. “I’ve seen a lot of those.” He shuffled through a few of the items as if he were afraid that his fingers might get caught in the mousetrap that I have set at the bottom, and then waved me through the gate.
At that moment, watching all the other women weighed down with heavy bags masquerading as purses that carried all the essentials for their groups' outings, I realized that I belonged to the social class categorized as the family pack mule.
This really came home a few days later while in the midst of piling into the car to make the next appointment on our agenda that was supposed to be a vacation. I bent over in the back seat to clean up a mess that no one made, when the Mommy bag landed upside-down on my head and the contents spilled out. Both my husband and son had a good laugh at me trying to collect marbles (yes, marbles) that had rolled into the parking lot.
Back when I was young, shortly after the cavemen emerged and started making their homes in huts, I was free to carry my few essentials (mirror, lipstick, comb, car keys, and wallet) in a chic little handbag that hung in a carefree manner by a thin leather strap from my shoulder. After I got married, chic dropped off my list of priorities. Like a pack mule on a wagon train across Death Valley, I care more about surviving an outing than I do about looking stylish.
It started with my husband asking me to carry his checkbook in my purse. He didn’t have room to carry it in his pockets and since men don’t wear suits with inside breast pockets anymore, the only place left to carry the checkbook was my bag.
Next came his car keys; and then the mail.
Then came our son. That was when I was assigned the task of carrying everything we could think of to bribe him into acting civilized in public.
Sometimes stuff is simply tossed over a shoulder in my general direction with hopes that it will land in the family saddlebag. After years of this, I gave in and got a big old ugly Mommy bag with an industrial strength strap to attach to my body for transport.
What can you find in a Mommy bag? Well, as of this moment, here is what is in mine:
One zipped-up section of the Mommy bag is reserved for my stuff. It contains cosmetics in case I meet someone I want to impress and need to clean myself up.
I also have a vial of holy water. No, I’m not Catholic, but a friend of mine is. She gave me this holy water shortly after meeting my son. I still wonder if she was trying to tell me something. I haven't seen the friend in quite a while, but I still have the holy water in the Mommy bag just in case I need it.
In another section, I have a cell phone that doesn't work. It was a freebie that came with our service. I also have a second cell phone in the Mommy bag. For that one, I paid a hundred dollars upgrade because the freebie didn’t work. The new one doesn't work right either, but that’s another blog. I do have one that works. It's in my son's bookbag at school where he is not allowed to use it. I also have a cell phone battery that I got in hopes of making the first cell phone work, but it didn’t help. That's why I had to get the second one.
I also have two sets of airplane tickets and luggage receipts from a year ago when I picked up my sister-in-law and niece at the airport. I don't know how they ended up in my purse. Both of them are Mommies. They should have their own bags.
I have a pair of scratched up sun glasses that I carry in case I can’t find my good pair. Right now, I don’t know where the good sunglasses are.
I have a recipe for Yukon Gold Potato Salad with a grocery list on the back. There are a lot of old shopping lists in the Mommy bag. I never know what to do with a shopping list after checking out my groceries. I don’t want to throw them away at the store, so I put them in the Mommy bag and they all gather together at the bottom along with the pens I can never find.
The Mommy bag also contains three pairs of 3-D glasses from when we saw Ice Age this summer. As soon as the movie was over, my husband and son handed me their glasses. My son didn't want them thrown away because he wanted to keep them to remember the movie. Considering that they have been in my purse all this time and he has never asked for them, I guess I can toss them now, or I can save them for in case they ever start making road signs in 3-D.
I have a pack of tissues. I don’t know where it came from. Now that I don’t need it, there it is. How much do you want to bet that I won’t be able to find it when I need it if I leave it in the bag?
I also have two crayons and a dozen pens in every shape and color.
Remember when people used to write checks, before they started using debit cards? Every time I needed to write a check, I would have to ask the clerk for a pen because I couldn't find one in my purse. Yet, I could always find crayons. How is it that I could find one of two crayons in my purse, but never find a pen? Go figure.
In case I ever get lost between my house and the mailbox, I also have a map of West Virginia. This was left over from our vacation. I also have a balloon with the US flag on it, a can of bug repellant, a bag of M&M’s (those will be gone in five minutes), and two of those complimentary bags of nuts that they give you on planes. (They don't give out nuts anymore, so you can guess how long these babies have been in the bag.)
I don’t like nuts, but every time someone somewhere takes a flight I end up with a bag of nuts in the Mommy bag. Nobody eats them while on the plane, but instead of insisting that the flight attendant take them back, they hand them to me to store in the Mommy bag in case our wagon train is attacked by coyotes who do like nuts.
Well, I have learned that everyone has an important job essential for keeping the family going. Mine is pack mule. That was okay until I saw an old western and discovered that the pack mule who carries all the supplies is usually the first one that the coyotes attack.