Hatin' it

Sarah Bryden-Brown of Momoir made the following observation this morning:  "We love our kids but not so much the job of looking after them.  Was it always this way or are we just ok with sharing the reality?"

Bold question, no?  

I'm having a crap morning.  It's HOT.  Winton has a cold.  Clara's school is having its last day so she is freaked out by impending routine changes (read: prone to hysterical weeping).

At work I am also trying to finish a major chapter of the book I'm trying to write: my shoulders hurt as though impaled on a rusty javelin.

Daydreamily I think it must have been easier in the days of yore when women just did one job (mothering).  But when I turn my brain on, I can see that's bullcakka.  Women have always done more than one job.  We've mothered while running households when households didn't have electricity or plumbing or disposable diapers.  

I feel ripped down the middle most days by the unmeetable, infinite needs of my children as they run up against the unmeetable, infinite needs of being an academic who should always be trying to teach better and research more.

My 1800s counterpart probably felt ripped down the middle by the needs of her children and the need to cook, do laundry and mend socks.  AND her husband would have considered her to be his property.

Miserable, unending, despair inducing demands now?  Oh yes.

But then too, and with no hope of recognition or autonomy.

At least now, if I can make it funny enough, people read and empathize with how torn I feel.

1800s Momosyllabic would have just had to suck it up.