“I have to get dinner started because daddy will be home soon”.
I have said this to the kids before but something about the way I said it this time hung in the air and I can’t seem to shoo it away. It made me chuckle. I suddenly had a vision of me in a pristine housewife dress draped with a wrinkle free apron, perfectly shaped hair, standing next to a vacuum cleaner with a slightly over-medicated smile on my face. What led me to write about this, is the surprising attraction to and immediate revulsion of what just occurred in my head.
I’m no June Clever. My version of being a wife and Mother more resemble what an offspring of Danny Tanner and Peg Bundy would look like. Literally speaking anyway. I love my family and will tackle any issue (cue cheesy 80’s tv background music) that life throws at us but I’m not winning any mother of the year awards either.
I’m a clean up after your self, unless there is blood I don’t want to hear whining, give a spanking when necessary because time out is usually a joke kind of Momma. And as far as a wife…well I married the man I did for a reason. There is no hierarchy in my marriage. My inner angry Lilith Fair groupie wants to jump start a riot every time I’m at a wedding and the words “to obey” are still left in the woman’s part of the vows.
I’m usually back in sweats by the time hubby gets home. I’ve never worn an apron and the only time I’m smiling while vacuuming is if I’m goosing my son and daughter with the vacuum hose to keep them laughing and out of my way.
However, I did choose to be a SAHM so I do feel somewhat responsible for the day to day chores in the house. Yes, I just dry heaved gagged a little. I never, ever thought I would be a SAHM and I NEVER thought I would “conform” to the roles a woman is “suppose” to take on but here I am. This is where life, in all its humorous irony, has led me. And I’m happy to be here.
I’m lying if I deny that there is something very satisfying and somewhat sexy about having dinner smelling up the house and a somewhat clean house ready when the hubby gets home. Having him walk in the door, hug the kids who have run up to him, give me a kiss on the cheek and maybe a little squeeze of the ass puts a smile on my face. I feel very strange admitting that though…like I just sold myself out. A little piece of my old 20 something self just died a little if I want to be melodramatic about it.
It’s comical really…five yrs of marriage, two kids and a surprising decision to trade my 9 to 5 for raising babies (and a slightly increased wine and coffee addiction), half my days are spent preparing or planning to prepare meals. This coming from the girl that said something like “Just because I have boobs doesn’t mean I have to cook dinner every night!” shortly after getting married. Once again, I find myself in a place I swore I would never be. Consumed with wearing hats I tried so hard in my 20’s to avoid even touching.
Back then, I was so hell bent on NOT conforming that it never occurred to me that I might actually enjoy activities that fit the standard mold like baking. I can bake the shit out of some cookies now and I enjoy the hell out of it. It blows my mind that I bake, that I have any desire at all to make home made cleaning products, that I attempted to make homemade Halloween costumes this year, that at least once a week I even think about trying to be in something other than sweats when my husband gets home because I want him to see me without boogers, oatmeal and flour streaked across my clothes and hair.
To say people don’t change is just plain naïve. Not that people always change for the better but they always change…it’s called growing. Life has forced me to change and add to my own perspective and thank God for that. I can own my views and not feel like I have to present my self in any one sort of way in order to be true to them.
I carry feminism and cookie dough in my arsenal now. Imagine that.
W.T.F. 