57 diapers
28 changes (and washes) of pants, shirts, bedsheets, cushion covers, pillow covers, blankies
13 rolls of Bounty
7 boxes of wet wipes
4 sleepless nights and days
2 girls
1 exhausted mother
How fall has fallen.
A friend of mine sent me a link to the Redmond chapter of Mothers & More today and I could not help but notice the tagline: The Network for Sequencing Women.
I had to Google ’sequencing women’ because I thought it was an association for women in genetics. Of course, the first hit was a definition by Mothers & More itself.
Mothers & More represents women who - by choice or circumstance - alter their participation in the paid workplace over the course of their active parenting years. We recognize the needs of the growing number of mothers who move in and out of paid employment and/or opt for a variety of flexible work arrangements in order to balance successfully their work and family responsibilities. This fluid work pattern, which occurs over a number of years and at various stages of motherhood, is known as “sequencing”. The term sequencing was coined by Arlene Rossen Cardozo in her 1986 book, Sequencing.
Here are some actual definitions of the word ’sequencing’:
The last one had me chuckling. Note that this was the definition provided by the Alzheimer’s Association. So unless you have Alzheimer’s, you’d know that choosing to quit your job to be a full-time parent isn’t really logical nor predictable. Rather, most of the time, it starts out as a naive, idealistic choice. That’s because most of us imagine sunny days spent watching our kids play independently in the backyard. We imagine lazing back in our Adirondack chairs, our slim, golden bikin-clad bodies roasting gently in the summer sun, a tall, cool glass of lemonade (or a festive mojito) in one hand, laughing contentedly as our kids act all cute running through the high, fine spray of our sprinklers. The skies are always blue, the grass always green, diapers always changed, laundry always done, dinner always ready, pantries and fridges always stocked, carpets always vacuumed, glass always full and hormones and body in perpetual harmony.
Sequencing. Besides being a funny big word to mean a very simple thing, I question its need. Americans, I think, love coming up with (or blatantly borrowing) new terms to politically-correctly (is there such a word?) describe what they think are 21st-century circumstances when in fact, working class women in Asia have been weaving in and out of work and parenthood since…there were women. Back when Indonesian maids were mainly still in Indonesia, Malay and Chinese and Indian women worked in the fields or in the mines or as servants in the houses of rich families or help their husbands in their own little family businesses to put food on the table. If they got pregnant, they worked through the pregnancy, and when the baby (or often, babies) is/are born, they stayed home to care for their kids, along with grandma or grandpa or whoever, whichever older relative was living in the same house. Whenever these women felt they were up to it, they’d go back to work. Often, they were presented with only one of two hard choices: Stay at home and your kids will starve. Go to work and leave your kids to the elements. Do whatever it takes and try not think too much about it.
Were they sequencing? Yes. Did they need NOT to be judged and to be acknowledged for their efforts? Hell, yea. Did they care? No.
With all the books written about opting out and opting back in again and whether women stupid for wasting their opportunities and lives by quitting their jobs just to parent full-time, or if they’re selfish, irresponsible career-obsessed men-wannabes for wanting to chase their dreams of fame and fortune, it all comes down to one thing. Well, I think it does. And the thing is, what makes you happy? If you enjoy your work, and are the type of person who needs to stay busy and earn money to be fulfilled, then go for it. If you enjoy being there with your kids all day, even through the unpredictable bowel movements and illogical temper tantrums, then do it. If you like a mix of both, then open an Internet business. There is more to technology than Google and Solitaire, ladies. Open an eBay shop. Blog for money. Play poker. In my case, I opened a cooperative preschool because, well, I’m insane.
It can be as simple as that.
Because when it comes down to it, happy people make happy parents.
No need for some big, convoluted debate about who’s right and who’s right-er.
No need for therapy.
No need for fancy new-old words.
Half way through her ham and cheese sandwich today, Rae asks the inevitable.
“Mommy, where does ham come from?”
“Uh…um…er…the farm.”
“The farm? But what is it made of?”
“Erm…meat.”
“Meat?”
“Yes…like, pork.”
“What is pork made of?”
I look away. I blink. I clear my throat.
“Pork is made…from a pig.”
Her little face freezes. A small piece of ham she’s chewing stops its passage into her mouth and hangs off it, slack. A second later, it falls out. Rae does not spit it out. She doesn’t cry. She simply lets the thing drop onto her plate, her eyes resting heavily on me, accusing, shaming, basically stunned in coagulating disbelief that I’d made her eat Babe the last five years or so.
“But pigs…are nice.”
“I know, baby. But they…are good for you.”
“But…that’s painful,” Rae’s eyes start to glisten.
“Well…the pigs are already dead…when they make the ham, baby,” I struggle to explain.
Unable to stomach her lunch - and my treachery - Rae pushes her sandwich away. I sigh pitifully, reflecting on the days ahead. What the heck do I know about cooking vegetarian? I’m already struggling with just…cooking.
I feel like the Meat Grinch.
I look over at Skyler, who’s attacking her slices of slaughtered animal with blissful ignorance. What I will not give for Rae to have that uncaring trust again, that whatever I’ve put on my children’s plates could not, should not, would not have involved bloodshed and carnage.
“Yummy!” Sky declares, chomping gleefully on a leg, as if to reinforce my silent gratitude.
Rae swipes her sleeve over her eyes and bravely picks up a cheese stick.
“And what’s CHEESE made of?” she asks, louder this time, her eyes steadily on mine. It’s as if she’s bracing herself for more ugly, horrific facts about nutrition. I gulp and catch myself. Haplessly turning my daughter into a vegetarian the last five seconds is one thing. I don’t think I can handle turning her into a vegan the next two seconds.
Choose. Your. Words.
“They’re made from milk. From cows. And cows don’t have to die to make cheese,” I answer as seriously as I can.
Rae eyes me warily. She slowly peels a string of cheese, and places it into her mouth. What seems like a century later, she chews. She keeps chewing. She swallows. I exhale.
“I love cows,” she says softly, looking at her string cheese as though it’s a gift from the divine (or should I say, bovine).
My thoughts turn to the 2lb pack of minced beef in my freezer.
And my husband’s shiny new grill.
Time to look up how to bake beef into bread.
Update: So far, Rae is only associating ham with carnage and death. Not pork, chicken or any other meat. And I’m not saying a word until she asks again.
“We have lights we wanna set up. We have music. We have a whole other suitcase packed.”
Good grief.
Now here’s something I found a little…over-the-top, for lack of a better description about some of today’s new (or maybe just New York) parents: A delivery room playlist.
The verdict is in, my non-American friends. If you’ve ever caught scenes on TV where women in labour scream for their music, it’s not just make-believe. Real people do that.
And I thought having a hospital room with its own waiting lounge, an adjoining bathroom, and TV was living the dream. God I’m jealous. All I can remember were the rhythmic thuds of Rae and Sky’s heartbeats, interspersed with a constant beeping of hospital equipment and the languid footsteps of nurses and doctors and interns strolling in and out of my ward, sticking their gloved fingers into my cervix and then declaring more waiting, and not to mention my own laboured breathing and groaning.
Music? What Music?
So what music were you listening to when you were giving birth? What was YOUR going-into-labour iPod playlist?
You know, a list of songs you play on your iPod?
An iPod?
Never mind.
So the conversation went a little something like this.
“I find you’re too lenient with your kids.”
“Yea, I tend not to sweat the small stuff.”
“No I mean like manners…”
“What, you mean the Ps and Qs?”
“No, not so much Ps and Qs. Respect.”
“Like?”
“Like when kids do something bad, you have to acknowledge it. Nobody likes it when a kid misbehaves. I tell my kids that it’s because I love them very much that I punish them.”
I can’t, for the life of me, imagine what this woman is talking about.
As far as I can remember, neither Skyler nor Raeven has ever done anything wrong that I’ve not acknowledged or made them apologise for.
Not. One. Damn. Thing.
This woman is implying that MY KIDS HAVE NO MANNERS.
That they’ve done something bad and that I’ve NOT made them apologise. Some time before or in MARCH 2007, which was the last time I saw this woman and her family.
And that my TWO-year old does not know respect.
And that because I’m Chinese, I have to make sure I pass on my Chinese traits, that not everything American is good, and that everything I learn here in America, no matter how scientific it may be, counts as American and therefore cannot be trusted 100 per cent.
Which means I have to YELL and SCOLD and BEAT the hell out of my kids to SHOW them who’s boss.
I cannot tell you how fucking furious I am right now.
I confess. I am a proponent of using a fusion of ideals to raise my children. I am not 100 per cent pro-Western or 100 per cent pro-Asian. I take what I think makes sense and I think, compared to a lot of people who have never lived away from home, I am very, VERY lucky to be able to do that, to have such information available.
For instance, I think the American sense of individualism is a little overrated - and dangerous. I believe that children need to understand that they are a part of a family and a community, and that what they do or don’t do, affects their environment. As such, I believe in teaching my children responsibility from a very young age. That they cannot draw on walls and waste food and scream in a public place because it creates work for mommy, and wastage costs money, money that their father works very hard to earn, and that when you make it unpleasant for people to be around you, then you have nobody to blame but yourself when nobody responds.
I also believe that pain and violence - a long standing Asian disciplinary strategy still widely practised in many Asian countries today - is not ideal for dealing with children. I have in the past succumbed to meting out pain as punishment, and the feeling is horrible. I spent weeks wallowing in shame for slapping my child’s behind because I thought she needed to understand the gravity of her actions. It was not worth it.
But you know what? With all that I know or think I know, I know next to nothing about raising children. And still I think I’m doing a pretty darn good job because at the end of the day, when I hear words like, “Mommy, I love you and you’re the best Mommy in the world!”, I know that I have done right by the only two people who matter.
My unwillingness to discipline my kids the Asian way IN FRONT OF PEOPLE has nothing to do with my not being Asian enough. In fact, it’s about giving them face even when they’re not frigging dinosaurs.
And the last time I checked, that’s as Asian as rice.
The fabulous Sue at Red Stapler, whom I’d met at Blogher07, gave me an ROFL award for this post.
I know, I don’t deserve it, because I haven’t even been blogging much lately. And I’ve never thought of myself as capable of evoking floor-rolling guffaws (perhaps a rare LOL, but an ROFL? Perhaps I should write comedy!).
And an ROFL is what I desperately need these days. I’ve been so busy with Sky’s preschool setup that I’m almost missing Rae’s big kindy-going celebration. My kindy mom friends have been emailing back and forth tearful experiences this week and I feel so guilty for not having been as excited as I should be, as ANY first-time mom of a kindergartener should be, because of this coop crap. I should be tied up and fed fried worms.
But not all is lost. Today is her first day and I shall be as tearful as the rest of you. You’ll see.
Speaking of Sky’s new cooperative preschool which I’m helping to set up, let me just say WHAT THE FLIPPIN’ FISH HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO?! The people who was to lease us our site came back with permit problems that will last until Winter quarter so we’ve had to scramble the last two weeks for a new site. Our Twos teacher quit because it was just too much for her so we spent the last weekend scrambling for HER replacement.
One has to ask: Just how much stress can a human being handle?
I need more than an ROFL. I need the friggin’ jaws of life.
Yesterday, while filling the tub for a nice bath, I noticed scum caked in between the tiles that line the walls surrounding my tub. Reflecting on how long it’d been since I’d given the toilet a nice scrub (just a week ago, I swear!), I started to splash some water from the tub onto the walls, and with my fingers, began to dig and pry the scum away.
Pretty soon, I was scraping off dried pink Dove soap and blue Head & Shoulders shampoo bits off the tub with my fingernails. Five minutes later, instead of soaking in a lavendar and chamomile infused soup of relaxation, I was in full Toilet Cleaning mode, replete with gloves, Scotch Brite sponge and Kaboom! Shower, Tub and Tile Cleaner, rubbing and scrubbing. By the time I was done, I had time only for a quick shower (also because I didn’t want to use too much water since I’d used the water that was supposed to be for my bath, for the spur-of-the-moment, slightly insane, latrine detail).
This was around 11 o’clock last night.
The results are in, dear friends. My transformation into Mother is complete.
All of us felt this once. Yes, Every Single One of You. Or maybe you still do.
That the day you start to pick up on any of your mom’s traits, you’d kill yourself.
Aside from the impulsive cleaning and what she claims to be a genetically inherited sense of thriftiness which, to her dismay, had failed to pass on to me (which led her to conclude that I had instead inherited my dad’s ‘extravagance gene’), my mom had many other detestable traits.
Like how she’d lay on the couch and zone out at the end of the day. That used to annoy the heck out of me because I thought she was lazy and would not go out or take us anywhere. Of course later, I realised that it’s because she was just exhausted from work and all the stuff she’s had to deal with on her own with both my sis and me, with my dad always away on his bowling tours.
I also remember being embarassed by how…unrefined she was (it still shames me to say that). The day Lokes and I officially introduced our parents to each other, I spent the whole day on edge, sure that my mom and dad would find a way to humiliate me in front of my future in-laws and that I’d die of shame that very day, an almost-married girl of 28 (Here she lies, broken-hearted. Almost got hitched, but her mom farted). My dad and Lokes’ dad were old bowling friends so I was happy about that, but my mother-in-law (elegant, polished homemaker wife of relatively well-to-do tobacco sales manager) was as different from my mother (working-class government servant) as eau de toilette is from, well, toilet water.
Shockingly, they got along rather well. To this day, I still think it was all a fluke.
It’s easy to say you will never become your mother when you’ve never had her life. People can work hard to become something but what they rarely realise is that it is decidedly harder to not become something because…really, who has the energy to spend one’s life in constant avoidance and perpetual prevention?
Also, one becomes other things in the course of pursuing whatever it is one is pursuing. Things you never thought you’d become.
I may have taken on some of my mom’s more annoying traits without planning to (whether they’re really from her, only science can tell) but I will never become her. I will never be the mom she was to my sis and me, in all the good ways and bad, because I am not married to a man like my father and I am not living the way we used to live. And even if I’d managed to somehow replicate her history, I don’t think I could have emerged from the desperation and heartache that was her life, to become the strong, sturdy and financially-sound woman she’s become today.
Which is why when the day comes, that both Rae and Sky declare loudly they will never do what I do, or be like me, or become me, I will calmly nod and agree,
“Of course you won’t. Nobody’s perfect, honey,” I’ll say.
Not even The I’mperfect Mom.
