Entries categorized as ‘Housewifery’
Bewildered Housewife is finally back in the Blogdom, having emerged from an extra-long pregnancy wielding one gorgeous baby, two fabulous breasts, and a set of in-laws who, as grandparents to our perfect child, have only gotten stranger. We aren’t talking about deadly cupcakes or evil racks of lamb strange, either. No, we are talking just plain creepy.
Bewildered Housewife believes that if I labored, induced and unmedicated, for 20 hours to give birth to another human life, that baby should be called mine. Apparently, my mother-in-law never got that memo. If it were up to her, she would have slapped me in a t-shirt that read “I’m Just the Vehicle” for my entire pregnancy (as long as the t-shirt had a Mercedes emblem on the back) and ran off with the child the second its cord was cut.
Since the baby’s birth, my mother-in-law has ran even more off-kilter from an already askew reality. To be fair, she started out on her best behavior. But as her normalcy won her more frequent visits with Baby, her classic sense of narcissistic entitlement began to show. I’ve mapped out some of the territory to better illustrate this:
(Keep in mind that these are more or less quotes, people)
Point A: I’ve just bought her a few darling little outfits —–> I just spent $1600 on a whole baby wardrobe with the word JUICY emblazoned on the ass ——> I can’t believe you went shopping for your baby – don’t do that! —–> Point B: I’LL buy all the baby’s clothes!!
Point A: I’ll follow whatever rules you lay down about your baby ——> Oops, sorry I filed the baby’s toenails, it won’t happen again ——> The baby’s face is all scratched up and her fingernails are jagged? Oh I would NEVER EVER cut them! Really, they look different from when you left the baby this morning? Hmm… well, I might have ‘filed’ them a little… —–> You said toenails, not fingernails! —-> Point B: I’m devastated you called to tell me not to groom the baby!
Point A: I’m sure you know exactly when the baby is hungry ——> You don’t feed the baby from both breasts?!!? GASP —–> Are you sure you’re making enough milk?? Maybe you should give baby formula —-> What do you mean only give the baby 3 oz. in a bottle – she ate all 7 of them at once! —–> The baby is STARVING! —-> Are babies supposed to be this fat? —-> Point B: You’re overfeeding the baby!! Don’t feed the baby any more!!!
And other random, incendiary comments such as my favorite, anytime I’ve dressed the baby in something pink:
You’re so CUTE when your mommy dresses you like a giiiiiiirl!
As opposed to what – dressing the baby like a priest? A left-handed circus midget? Or – crime of crimes! – androgenously in cotton?
According to the general mommy public, though, these is more or less the standard moronic landscape whenever a woman pops out somebody’s grandbaby. What is not standard, however, is the way that this particular actually shield’s the baby’s face and walks in the opposite direction when either I or my husband attempt to retrieve our child. I then get to look like the psycho when I bare my teeth and growl, “Give Me My Baby,” which is actually fine with me at this point.
Because I am slightly psycho these days. I haven’t slept in months, am often covered in poop or milk, and my hair has hit that lovely postpartum stage in which it begins to fall from my head like teams of suicidal jumpers off Wall Street. I don’t have time for the creepiness. Hell, I just now found the time to blog.
Hello again Blog World!
Categories: Housewifery · My Mother in Law
Tagged: baby, birth, breastfeeding, clothing, creep factor, formula, girl, grandchild, grandmother, hair, in laws, labor, mommy, mother in law, pregnancy, shopping
As is customary these days, I got out of bed at 4am this morning and went directly to the mailbox. I am waiting for a letter from The Guinness Book of World Records that confirms I have had the longest pregnancy on record. According to my calculations, it’s been at least 87 months and 22 days with no end in sight. And I am not the only one around here paying the price; my closet has been woefully neglected in favor of the small cubby where I keep my shrinking arsenal of clothing. This is my own fault. I simply could not wrap my mind around buying a whole new category of clothing that either A) makes me look like one big giant psychedelic curtain or B) costs more than an inevitable boob job.
My husband dutifully tries to console me, saying that nothing about me looks that different at all (at which point I swing sideways and show him the silhouette of my enormous belly, just for the sheer thrill of seeing his eyes pop out of his head). I’ve noticed, though, that his attempts at comfort have been growing increasingly half-hearted. The last month of pregnancy doesn’t provide much cover in the way of denial.
The stock market is also doing little for the morale of Bewildered Housewife’s household. It’s been a solid two weeks of forehead-smacking news each morning, our mouths agape in disbelief. I am considering a ban on financial news until further notice. I’m thinking pancakes would be a suitable alternative.
But I will have to wait a few hours for those pancakes because, oh, that’s right, my husband still manages to enjoy that luxury I once knew as “sleep”. If I were a lesser woman, I would go flush the toilet right now. Lucky for him, I have more self-control than that. For now.
In other news, my bloggery pals over at buttercuppunch hosted a live blog during last night’s presidential debate, and I must admit that it was brilliant fun. Some of the blow-by-blow highlights include a truly cranky Tom Brokaw, my new favorite nickname for Sarah Palin (”Caribou Barbie”) and John McCain switching to Geico. I’d suggest high-tailing it over there for the next and final debate.
The local latest has the baby flipped around again to an upright position. If she doesn’t tuck and roll REAL SOON, little girl is going to be grounded as soon as she emerges. Turn, baby, turn.
Ah. 5:30 am. Time for peanut butter.
Categories: Housewifery · Neither Here nor There
Tagged: barbie, blog, boob job, clothing, Geico, husband, maternity, pancakes, pregnancy, pregnant, presidential debate, sarah palin, shopping, stock market, tom brokaw, world records
A great many responses to my previous post were from very angry women. Most of them perceived that I was comparing the merits of being a housewife with the merits of being a mother/working mother/stay at home mother, etc.
What is most bewildering to Bewildered Housewife is that nowhere in my missive did I mention any comparisons. Nowhere did I breathe a word about the worth of working mothers. Where, exactly, did I imply anything at all about mothers, working or not, and where, exactly, were workloads compared? Please peruse the first seven paragraphs for reference.
Oh, you mean the pizza and cocktails comment has our panties in a bunch? Tsk. That was an observation of another couple we know, and what they do nearly every night. In fact, spending time with them recently and seeing that pattern while fielding questions all night about what I “do” spurred the writing of my post. I’m sorry if that hit a sore spot for you. These are the perils of writing, my friends. We are bound to see ourselves in someone’s material at some point, and it’s our decision to take it personally or not.
As a final word on the matter (because it is my blog, after all) at no place and at no point is it my job as a writer to:
A) Justify my material
B) Be belittled by a reader’s projections
C) Post abusive commentary
D) Change a single word
On a side note, I was raised by a working mother who has been, and continues to be, the most amazing example of Woman I have ever known. It is simply bizarre that so many perceive a Defense of Housewifery to be, by its nature, equal to an attack on working motherhood. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the projections that have created a polarity, filling in blanks that are not even there. One woman’s choice for her own life has nothing at all to do with another woman’s choice for hers. And yet clearly, so many take it personally, as if Limited Good were in effect. It’s an incongruency that needs some attention – and one that won’t be resolved until dialogue takes place that can be raised above the adolescent level of name-calling and multiple exclamation points.
At any rate, I am done with this topic for now. In Defense of Housewifery was written as a response to an occurence in my life, not as a means to unwind the tangled web of an entire society’s views of femininity and worth. Onward.
Categories: Housewifery
Tagged: anger, debate, defense, dialogue, femininity, housewife, Housewifery, moms, mother, motherhood, name-calling, society, women
As is customary among most American adults, I am often asked what I do for a living. Whereas I used to dazzle my audience with my resume from the past ten years, I now give a different answer. Depending on my syllabic mood, I say that I am either a homemaker or a housewife. In a few short months from now, I’ll have my job title distilled down to one succinct word: MOM.
And then I wait for the inevitable reaction: First, eyebrows raise in surprise. Close on those heels comes the usual, slightly passive-aggressive platitude, “Well, THAT must be nice.” I tell them that no, sitting around eating bon-bons all day must be nice. What I do actually keeps me busy and on my toes.
“So, what DO you do all day?” they ask. What, you mean besides being secretary, accountant, nurse, therapist, housekeeper, laundress, nutritionist, personal shopper, event planner, decorator, executive chef, and, oh yeah, pregnant? Why, I just sit around eating bon-bons all day.
What is odd is that it never occurs to me to ask what other professionals do all day long. It’s a question that makes its way specifically toward housewives and other similar women. Its asking is intended to marginilize us, as if no task we carry out could possibly be as important or necessary as the things that other working people do. For reasons I have yet to understand, divulging this information makes us a fair target for others’ judgements, as if as stay-home women we become property, kept or child-like, and need to justify our actions and motives even to strangers.
Important to note is that not everyone holds judgment or demands explanation. I do encounter people - granted, not often - who don’t bat an eyelash, but rather greet my response with a satisfied nod. It’s no strange coincidence that these are all people who have set their own lives up in such a way as to be doing the things that they love. Some of it might pass as “official business”, but all of it qualifies as passion. I have come to imagine that the people who have conciously created their realities don’t find the concept offensive. It takes a fulfilled person to understand fulfillment. This is because a satisfied person has had to first embrace the possibility of an authentic existence in order to create it. A happy person has the capacity to be happy for others. On the contrary, a dissatisfied person has a compromised ability to imagine satisaction, let alone to be pleased with someone else’s version of it. To them, satisfaction is always somehow partnered with guilt (guilt for seeking satisfaction, guilt for not seeking it), and it’s a happy housewife’s funny fate to often be an object of that projection. In reality, my being a housewife (and soon to be stay at home mom) is not a problem – it’s actually YOUR problem.
Is this all to say that I have no desire or drive to do or be anything else? Of course not. Am I able to hold a provocative, informed conversation on a myriad of current, cultural and/or academic topics? Sure am. Will I continue my education once the babies are a few years old? You bet I will. Will I fufill my other dreams of teaching college, writing books, and contributing positively to my larger environment? There is not a doubt in my mind.
But will I allow my desires for the future to undermine the importance or joy of the commitment I have made to my home and family in the present time? Absofreakinglutely not. And I won’t let you do that, either.
In short, I don’t cluck my tongue at you for chopping your hair off and schlepping for a boss so that you can share bitter cocktails at 5pm and order a pizza for your child after daycare. You’ve made your choice.
This one’s mine.
Categories: Housewifery · The Pregnancy
Tagged: american, business, choice, college, commitment, culture, defense, home, housewife, Housewifery, mother, profession, wife, writing
All of the animals are ill today, and it’s got me upset. Pablo the bodhisattva cat has a cold, and his sneezes are the most heartbreaking thing. How is he supposed to save the world like this? Tigger the gentleman kitty has been leaving very un-gentlemanly deposits in the litter box but still remains polite about it, announcing immediately that clean-up is needed in aisle 5. It’s already too late by then to spare our noses, but we appreciate the effort.
Mischa the dog has it the worst of all. His right ear hurts and is presenting in a sad droop that makes his otherwise perfectly symmetrical lion’s mane appear lopsided. He is even ignoring his Teddy, which normally provides for hours of bearish fun. I catch a view of this depressing scene each time I walk past the bedroom, where he has taken to moping since I informed him of our collective visit to the vet clinic later in the day. Maybe he thinks his depression will change my mind about taking him in, and I have to admit that I am tempted. Mischa has the uncanny ability to wear his heart on one furry little sleeve and could probably bring about peace between Palestine and Israel just by sitting there, looking worried.
Although every logical cell in my brain implores me not to, I am going to herd these three sickos into my car this afternoon and hope that World War III does not erupt while I’m driving. None of them are particularly good drivers, so I am counting on them to remain strapped into their passenger seats, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. It has all the makings of a bad joke. So an explosive cat, a bodhisattva and a Chow walk into a car…
I’ll give you the punchline just as soon I find out what it is.
Categories: Housewifery
Tagged: bodhisattva, cats, depression, dogs, driving, israel, litter box, mylo, pablo, palestine, sick, teddy, tigger, vet, world war III
