We went on vacation and I had my usual insight about how different vacation (and all of life) is for Paul. Some of you will not identify, and good for you and your inarguably better life/marriage, and may the next generation make choices that have more in common with yours than with mine. But I will tell this one anecdote. At one point, we decided to take the kids swimming. Just before we all got into the water, Paul announced that actually he thought he’d prefer to go kayaking instead. He departed, alone. I supervised all of our children in the water—which meant very little swimming/enjoying and quite a bit of counting repeatedly to five to make sure no one had disappeared beneath the surface. Right after this swimming session, there was another excursion planned—again, with supervision of children needed. (Our children don’t need anywhere near the level of supervision they needed when they were small, but a certain level of attendance is still needed in dangerous/unfamiliar/learning situations, and also there is a certain level of “not dumping them on other adults who are also trying to enjoy vacation.”) I went indoors to pee and apply more sunscreen etc.—and found Paul asleep. So he had gone off to do something by himself, leaving me with the children; and then had felt free to just…return from that solo excursion and take a nap. Without checking in or anything. Without worrying or even wondering if the children were being supervised, or if I would like a turn to do something on my own, or if it was okay with me to be indefinitely in charge. Just, doing whatever he felt like doing, without regard for anyone else, and this is the person I apparently deliberately married and apparently deliberately chose to have children with. (And you might say, “Well, why don’t YOU go off and do something on YOUR own??” and the answer is “Because he would have left the children alone in the water.”) I am not telling this story for “Oh SAME girl!” high-fives (though misery does as always love company) OR for “WHAT???” reactions, but more as a measure/check-in of how things are and how they continue to be over the years. For balance, I will say that on this same vacation Paul cheerfully/happily organized (including extensive preparation/packing of ingredients and equipment) and then cooked dinner (with two different appetizers) for fourteen people, while I did no such thing. (But back to the other side of the scale, perhaps we could discuss OVERALL trip-shopping/preparation/packing/unpacking, and how in all of life it seems that Paul gets to choose whether he does chores/childcare or not—and anything he chooses not to do is mine by default.)
***
When we first hired the cleaners, I had never cleaned this house. That was the deal: we could move to the house Paul wanted to move to, but I had seen how things had gone for the last 20 years in our smaller/simpler house, so the deal was that I was not going to be similarly in charge of cleaning the new house just because he preferred that house and had no concept of the associated increase in chores. So we moved, and we hired cleaners (Paul found/contacted/hired the cleaners, because that was another part of the deal), and I was satisfied with their work. Then there was a pandemic, and for well over a year I cleaned the house myself (with half-assed assistance from the rest of the family who were theoretically equally responsible for the substitute cleaning). And now, unfortunately, my eyes are tuned in to what things look like when they are cleaned well. You might have gotten the impression over the years that I am not a good housecleaner, because I hate to do it and often decline to do it—but when I DO clean, I do a Very Good Job (unless I commit ahead of time to doing a Half-Assed Job, which can be necessary for sanity and/or getting anything at all done). This is a curse, as it turns out, because it means I know what the bathroom faucets look like when someone cleans all the little crevices with an old toothbrush and baking soda, and that I notice when someone instead wiped them with a paper towel and didn’t get the crevices and didn’t attend to that part around the back of the faucet/sink that’s hard to see but nevertheless develops build-up if not attended to.
Let’s not suggest I choose new housecleaners. Not only do we all know I would rather sell the house and/or perish than do that, but also I doubt a different set of cleaners would be better: I don’t EXPECT the housecleaners to use a toothbrush on all the little crevices. They are not hired to do it THE SAME AS I WOULD HAVE DONE IT; they are hired so that I don’t have Primary Responsibility for doing the cleaning, and so that the most important cleaning gets done steadily and without the ball being dropped when I despair and/or go on an absolutely justified strike. It’s just that I wish my eyes weren’t tuned into it now. I also wish that, during the pandemic, I had paid myself the same money we paid/pay the cleaners, since I certainly earned it.
***
Elizabeth got a buzz cut. Over the years I have considered myself a pretty laid-back parent about hair, with a “It’s only hair / It’s their hair / They can do what they want” attitude about it—but I had not understood that “buzz cut for a girl” was on the table so I had some rapid catching-up to do. One of my primary fears was that she would have a picture in her mind of what it would look like, and the reality would be dramatically different, and then there would be a crying teenaged girl refusing to go to school or see friends or whatever—but none of that came to pass. She is happy with how it looks, and keeps talking about how quick and easy it is to deal with, and she has sent many pictures to friends and has changed her Bitmoji to match it and so forth. She also bought some painter pants and has been exclaiming about how many/deep the pockets are, so Elizabeth is really living her best life right now. I don’t like the buzz cut, but I can APPRECIATE the buzz cut, if you follow me, as well as the CONCEPT and UPSIDES of the buzz cut; and also I have snapped back around to my “It’s only hair / It’s her hair / It doesn’t matter what I think of it” attitude.
I have so many potential, miserable company loving replies…but I will stick to this: our family vacation was so utterly and completely un-fun, unpleasant and infuriating for me that I have decided I will get everyone off to school for the new year, and then I AM TAKING MY OWN VACATION. BY MYSELF.
I am so, so, so burned out from EVERYTHING. Ugh.
I am going on a solo trip for my birthday for this very reason.
Lol on the buzzcut fears!!! I would have totally had the same fears—that the reality would not live up to the imagined cut and then there would have been much Sobbing Teen Girl Dramatics. So happy she likes the cut! :-)
One of the girls on Ava’s soccer team (the goalkeeper-always a badass demographic) got a buzz cut this weekend! I thought of Elizabeth! She got so many compliments on it from the other girls—I was happy for her as she also seemed to love it! (Is this A Thing?)
My kid watches a YouTuber who got a buzz cut a little while ago. Her name is gamer girl or something like that. Probably a thing.
My husband does this on vacation and it must be nice. I should just up and go on a solo adventure when we go on vacation again, since it’s clearly fine.
I was worried about L getting her hair cut so short as well, but she loves it SO much that I’m relieved!
Every mom knows that it’s not a vacation for THEM. At least you did not have to cook all the meals! I’d take that win.
I have this variety of husband, so I will say you are not alone; you have a sister in solidarity. Mine genuinely cannot understand why the thought of a family vacation does not instantly fill me with joy. He must believe all the planning, logistics, packing, and general WORK that goes into putting together and executing a vacation is done by a vacation fairy. I tell myself this because if he thinks there IS NO work for a vacation is just too depressing to consider. Family vacations are business trips for me (the mom), plain and simple. Cheers to you for handling the situation with as much grace as possible and going so far as to see the positive contributions.
“Family vacations are business trips for me”
YES! YES! Yes, exactly!
I will be curious to hear if she grows it back out or rocks the buzz cut for a while. I’ve had a buzz for 10+ years now and have a hard time even considering going back to long. Now it’s just my Look. But most ladies I’ve known that have done the buzz only did the one round and then let it grow back out. I HATE the grow-back-out process, so I’m pretty much stuck.
That being said, one of my new sixth grade students enthusiastically told me no less than three times today how much she loves my hair and don’t be surprised if she shows up looking like a little boy one of these days (her words!!) so.
See if she’ll let you rub her head “for luck”. Some of my friends enjoy doing this; I bemusedly tolerate it. It’s very fuzzy.
I hated it when North shaved their head early in the pandemic, especially since I didn’t realize beforehand that they were going to KEEP shaving it, that it wouldn’t be a one-time thing. The shaving lasted 4.5 months and now it’s been 9 months that they’ve been growing it out and I am STILL grateful whenever I see their hair. But I kept my thoughts to myself because it’s their hair, not mine.
I have had the same discovery with my own housecleaner. I can’t quite tell if she is less effective now than she used to be (wearing a mask makes things harder? we are dirtier?) or if I am just used to my own cleaning after a year? But of course someone else is doing the cleaning and that is really what matters.
A solo vacation would be amazing, no? We just returned from a long weekend away and I was ready to bolt during the trip. The drama was mainly from my cranky, moody 13 year old daughter. Also we discovered roaches in our vacation condo during the first day of the trip. Kinda killed the enjoyment of getting away.
“and this is the person I apparently deliberately married and apparently deliberately chose to have children with.”
I am feeling this sentiment very very much right now, not so much about vacation but about (waves hands vigorously) things.
I had a similar moment last week. My husband decided several weeks ago he wanted to go to a thing. He wrote it on the calendar, announced he would be going, and when the day came, he went. There was no negotiating, no asking if I had anything going on, no other thoughts but that he wanted to go. And he went. It was fine, really, I didn’t want to go and it was not a big deal since our kids are grown up and able to manage on their own. But it’s always been that way. If I want to do something, it seems like there’s considerably more work involved.
This happened to me this summer, too. But he was gone for a week, and we have three small-ish children. I may never forgive him.
PS He knows he messed up, though. So I guess there’s that.
Ah – so glad to be divorced 50% custody! I buzzed my hair when i was 15 (?) in 1995 – was into Bikini Kill etc. everyone thought I was a lesbian which was edgy at the time (not lesbian more heteroflexible but not mad at the assumption) and my mom didn’t want me to do it/was worried it would look bad? I was at boarding school so I could just do stuff like that and she agreed that it actually looked cute. I’ve done it various times since. Sometime in the first summer of the pandemic I bought clippers to be able to keep it done whenever I can’t roll out of bed directly onto a Teams meeting. I also (still) have a homemade shirt from the time that says Patriarchy Bites which is very much how I feel all the time right now. I do the absolute bare minimum of cleaning/cooking – sometimes I pay my 8 years younger (hot/weird/bi/poly/retired) boyfriend to wear unicorn booty shorts and do my chores and I have really great (well much better than me) housecleaners that come every other week. When I was still married I also worked full time and my husband and I alternated on duty and off duty weeks where if we were off duty we were free to make whatever plans and when on duty we were responsible for arranging coverage for any plans. I feel like I rebel against all the patriarchy mother pressures in a way that probably is not great for my kids – patriarchy sucks.
When people ask me if I’m looking forward to our family vacations, I ask if they have ever watched Downton Abbey, and if they had, to please think about the Butler who packs alll the carriages and supervises the cooks and arranges alll the things when the family goes on vacation. When we go on vacation I am not Lady Crawley; I am Mr. Carson the Butler.
OMG!!!! Mr Carson. Same!!!! But without a staff to order around!! Maybe more like Daisy.
One of the many frustrating things about capitalism and the culture of the US is that unpaid work is not valued- literally or culturally. I stay at home with our two young kids, and notice how I chose to say “stay at home.” Many’s the time I have been asked “Do you work?” I SURE DO. I clean, plan meals, grocery shop, cook, bake, pack lunches, tend the garden, sew masks, change sheets and towels on a schedule, do laundry… you get the picture. Yes, it is flexible, and for me it’s easier than trying to fit in even a part time job around the kids’ school schedules. But it’s not easy. And yes, my husband works more than full time for a good salary and does chores and maintenance around the house. That’s not easy, either. I work too, but it’s “not paid,” it’s “women’s work,” it’s not valued by society… I may have to get that “smash the patriarchy” shirt I’ve been eyeing.
My husband (who has its flaws but not appreciating my contribution to our family isn’t one of them) early on in our primary parent/working parent arrangement told someone I was no longer at my old job and was now the household manager. I have used that title ever since. At other times he says I’m the family Chief Operating Officer, which cracks me up but feels less like something I can say myself with a straight face.
My mom had a friend in the college town I grew up in who had 3 kids. At a point when they were perhaps 2, 4, and 6, she found their social circle unreceptive to/uninterested in her answer to “What do you do” as “Stay-at-home-mom” (or whatever similar phrase she used; this would have been 1970s), so took to telling people she was in charge of a home-based injury prevention program. And really (my observation, not her reply), so much more.
I’m grouchy because we got our house cleaners back when things seemed to open up after vaccines, but the agency won’t send us a vaccinated crew (they don’t want to “reveal private medical information”; I can think of five different ways they could handle that) and the cleaners only wear their masks when we’re in the same room, which isn’t how it works. So we had to go on hiatus again. Sigh. The increase in “reminding” my children is something I would pay not to do.
I am really, really glad you added the “for balance” part because otherwise I would have melted Paul with the energy beaming out of my mind. Partly because I can relate; when the kids were little my husband would go golfing – which takes, as we know, MANY HOURS – and I would be there, at my in-laws’, with small children, doing all the things I would normally do at home but in a much less convenient location and without all the comforts of home and with having to make weird, stilted conversation with said in-laws. NOT GREAT. Now it’s not like that but I still have to a) plan all the meals b) buy ingredients for all the meals c) make all the meals, which. Well. I desperately miss being able to go on winter vacations to all-inclusive resorts for this reason. And my husband seems to have NO CONCEPT that it’s actually work to plan and make meals on vacation. “We can just barbeque!” Sure! But. We also need to prepare all the side dishes and buy the food and omg solo vacation sounds good right now.
Oh man we can just BBQ! Whenever H proposes this for dinner/guests/vacation/whatever he will literally think only of the meat we that is going on the grill until I say something like “OK and what else will we be having?” A few years ago I moved to a system where we alternate meal planning by week and there has been some moderate improvement in him actually considering what full meals entail, but for some reason the BBQ thing remains a blind spot.
We just got back from vacation and since my family is just me and the two kids I no longer have to deal with that nonsense, so I was looking forward to having a great time. Our first family vacation was 3 years ago and evidently then I was riding high on being newly single and very much had a ‘screw the world I can do this alone and have fun’ empowerment trip going on. This time I was not riding on that high and instead it was more of the ’18 months into a pandemic and I’m exhausted and lonely’ vibe. We got to our destination 4 1/2 hours away from where we live and I realized my entire support system was half a day’s drive away. I just spent the entire trip so anxious. It sucked. The kids had fun though so hopefully their memories will be different than mine.
My only comment is that if you ever snap and murder Paul, call me. I will help you hide the body and provide an airtight alibi.
I know this is not the point of this post but as a middle school teacher of many girls with long hair who despise it and are banned from cutting it, I want to let you know that you are rocking being the mother of a teenage girl.
Elizabeth in future, when talking to her peers about this kind of thing, will realise what a rock star you are.
I have a middle school girl who desperately wants a super short undercut. We just moved, she just started 7th grade, I’ve been hemming and putting her off. I am not normally like this. She had a pixie years ago, then dyed it purple, then got an undercut. I just think it’s much easier to go there when it’s already short. it’s just such a grow out. Such a commitment. Sigh. It’s just hair, it will grow back. I’m convinced.
I have many many things to say but also many emails to mail and spreadsheets to spread.
When I’m my better self, and I notice that the housecleaner (who is generally wonderful) has done something not very well, I tell myself “Well I’m only noticing that because the rest of the debris has been cleared and counters wiped.” I feel like it’s still a big win not to run that #$%^&* vacuum. She does a LOVELY job with the vacuum.
Ok I only read the vacation part and I know you weren’t looking for “me too” but I came to post because I am still angry about the vacation we just returned from and I can’t help it. First I’m a working mom with 4 kids ages 1-9. The week before the trip he scheduled some social/work-ish events so I had the kids in the evening every night that didn’t have sports. The night before the trip he casually asked at 10 at night if I had packed for the kids. Yep he just assumed I had taken care of everything for 5 people and he could just cruise on in last minute- not even watching the kids so I could pack. I almost didn’t go on the trip because the entitlement was just so egregious (the trip was with HIS family).
Then on the trip he decided to run or do other activities without kids at peak kid pool/beach time. Could he have gone in the early am before they were swimming? Or after bed? Or during the quiet bit after lunch? Of course he could have, but instead he left me with the kids and the ocean and just did what he felt like. Several days he left twice and NEVER EVEN SAID ANYTHING TO ME. I calmly suggested he plan differently 1/2 way through the trip but nah, that didn’t suit him. He said “I’m on vacation”.
I try not to every fight in front of his parents but I seriously lost my sht 3/4 through the week. He was just flabbergasted.
I got one hour to myself on a 7 day vacation. And that was at the grocery store. I guess I should have just taken off one day without saying anything but I didn’t want the kids to drown.
My kids are older now, but back when we only had two, a 4YO and a 1YO, we went on an eye-opening trip.
In the planning stages, my husband suggested that we drive instead of flying. “OK,” I said. “But only if I do all the driving and you do all the keeping the kids happy in the back seat.” We flew.
Once there, we were coming back from lunch and he pulled into a golf club because he decided he would like to play a round of golf. Which would have included waiting around for someone to loop him into their group that lacked a fourth. I was so annoyed by the prospect of getting two kids down for naps alone in an unfamiliar place that I asked, “Will they let you play in that shirt?” which indeed they did not. But I should have just said “Fine” for the sheer joy of him having to walk back in his collar-less shirt when, as I suspected, he was turned away.
He went on to spending the rest of the week doing many fun things. And when I finally pointed out that I had not had a minute free from parenting responsibilities, he was apologetic and all, but he had.not.noticed.
To be fair to both of us, at one meal, he did say he would take the crying baby out and I should stay and eat. But then he continued to eat dinner, because what he meant was “I am going finish here and then I will take the baby out.” Parenting is not something you get around to eventually.
Our kids, as it happens, are just not good travelers, and we stopped trying to change their essential natures. But the years before we threw in the towel were so awful that when I imagine taking fun trips again, they do not usually include him.
Jd, you are living my life.
Also I will add that my husband is a little salty that I am unwilling to book a camping vacation. Especially since I was an avid camper pre-kids. Also unwilling to take a big RV trip.
Because who has to pack and unpack and clean all of the extra stuff required by camping? Or the household supplies needed in an RV?
Has he volunteered to pack for a camping trip?
That’s why we have not been camping as a family.
RV camping was our thing for many years pre-kid, and even for a few years post-kid. My husband did all the RV related things, driving, maintenance, emptying, setup, etc. My “only” job was packing. As we all know, this is an ENORMOUS job, especially once we had 2 children. He could never understand why I made it seem so laborious, but it just WAS. Food, and clothes, and diapers, and meds and toiletries, bug spray and sunscreen, and one million things. Because sometimes there’s a Walmart, but sometimes there is NOT. Then he always complained I brought too much food. Well. We are now selling the RV and I could not be happier.
This is not to mention the many times he went kayaking or hiking and left me at the camper with two children. Sometimes he took the vehicle too.
My husband took the kids camping overnight one night when they were still in single digits, but no longer in diapers – maybe 7 and 9 years old? He did the planning and packing himself. Before they left I asked about a couple of essentials: Did you pack toothbrushes and toothpaste? Medications for our allergy- and headache-prone son? A change of clothes? He had not packed underwear. And not because he forgot it, because he had reasoned that he wanted to pack light and they would be fine in the same underwear for 24 hours. Which, sure, I can see that if they don’t do what most kids do and accidentally spill stuff on themselves or sit in stuff, but how much room does two extra pairs of underwear take up? They were going in a large truck!
Hey, at least he did the whole thing himself, and he brought underwear after my eyes bulged at his reasoning.
Yeah I only have two kids and they ages 12 and 18 and I’m still not agreeing to camping or RVing. No one in my family can understand why I don’t want to go camping. Well there is nothing fun about packing up half a house, planning a weeks worth of meals, spending hours in the car, and then cleaning everything when we get home. I’m not even getting into sleeping on the ground and dealing with bugs and weather. Hard no. Hotels/condos or bust for me.
I know you don’t really post pictures of your kids, so I am speaking this into the ether, but I would LOVE to see Elizabeth’s hair! I am picturing Sinead O’Connor in my head, and IMO she totally rocked that look so well!
In our household (with now grown kids 26,22, 19 with only the 19 year old in and out w/college) we have always done a more conventional division of labor, with me doing more of the kids/house stuff and him doing the hard ass corporate job (don’t get me wrong, at times I absolutely felt like my hard ass job was so much harder than his because KIDS OMG.) Now though, I am enjoying the fruits of my labors for sure. I am essentially mostly retired and doing whatever volunteer or paid work I want to do WHEN I WANT TO DO IT and girl I am loving life!
Not recommending the above for anyone in particular, just saying it worked for us and the shitty parts ironed themselves out and now LIFE IS GOLDEN. lol
A couple of things…
Hair: My niece wanted a radical haircut – short with a shaved or buzzed undercut – and her father was pretty discouraging. He liked the super-long hair she’s had for a long time and told her she’d look too much “like a boy”. She just turned 15 and she got her hair cut above the shoulder and some red chunks put in. She likes it, but I suspect it was a compromise. I am more like you as I I believe in bodily autonomy and see hair as part of a person’s body and therefore entirely their choice. I’m allowed to have opinions, but they are still allowed to do whatever they want with it. My only ask about their appearance in general is that they try to make choices that are situationally appropriate – skimpy outfits might not be the best choice for a visit to their grandparents for example.
Vacations: During the baby years my husband didn’t get why getting ready for a trip was so time-and-effort-consuming. At this point in our lives my husband at least understands and appreciates the effort I put into prepping for family vacations, and he will ask what things he can do and check off on my lists. He also knows better than to just try to do some of the things on his own. Despite this, my all-time favourite family vacation was a week-long road trip I took with just our kids while he stayed home with the dog in 2019. I loved not taking his picky eating into account, and being able to make all the decisions and do exactly what I wanted with the kids. Finding sleeping accommodations for 3 of us was easier than 4 too (especially since he’s quite a snorer). I don’t think I’d like travelling solo as much as I would travelling with just one of my kids, when there’s even fewer tastes to accommodate but I still would get to share the experience with someone who appreciates it. But both kids was great and I’d do it again in a heartbeat if it didn’t mean hurting my husband’s feelings.
Some of my best vacation memories are the trips I took solo with my two kids while my husband was at one of his Anime conventions.
So many thoughts but rather than comment with an absolute WALL of text I will limit myself to noting
(1) my housekeeper closed her business right after COVID started so we’ve been without a cleaner for 18 months and unlike you I am abysmal housecleaner. I hate it, I’m bad at it, it makes me angry, all of the things. Finally tomorrow we have someone coming to clean our house and I just hope she’s not completely terrible because I can’t stand it anymore and will put up with probably quite a low-level of cleaning if it means I don’t have to do it.
(2) Trips (I will not call the vacations) with my family or to my inlaw’s were unenjoyable for so many years for just this kind of thing and also because when we went to my inlaws there were four adults and STILL I was the only one taking care of/entertaining my kids – my inlaws actively distracted H from helping and it was enraging. I wish I had good words of advice for mothers of young kids to make this better but, frankly, the only reason trips became vacations was not due to any improvement in H or my inlaws, it was because my kids got old enough not to need constant help/ entertainment/supervision. We didn’t take many trips when my kids were young bcs I didn’t want to spend my limited vacation days becoming angry and exhausted. Now (or before COVID) vacations have become fun.
I honestly think that in the husband stakes, I picked one of the best I’m likely to get. He takes most of the early morning shifts with the toddler, at the moment he’s doing *all* the night wake ups because said toddler is going through a phase of only wanting him at 2am. He does 90% of the cooking, he splits daycare and school pick up and drop offs.
BUT! He has absolutely no idea about the mental load of managing a household of 4 people, including a daughter with various eye-related extra hospital appointments. He is blind to mess and dirt and clutter and when I ask him to help with cleaning (I have to ask!) he rolls his eyes and then does a shitty job like a 14-year-old. And yes, he works a few more hours each week than me, but I’m not a stay at home parent and I have my own career to handle on top of the endless school admin, health admin, life admin and household management. If I do ask him to do things, he will invariably procrastinate until I lose patience and remove the job from his list and do it myself because reminding him 5 times is more work than just doing it.
So… in short. I really see the appeal on a practical level of having a wife. Husbands… what do they really bring to this party?
I should add that even though he cooks, somehow I’m *still* the one doing all the meal planning. So what he actually gets is 45 minutes of peace hiding in the kitchen listening to the news while I wrangle two hangry small kids during witching hour.
Can I just say I have Covid, have not left my room since last tuesday to isolate and save our too young to vaccinated kids AND MY HUSBAND IS STILL ASKING ME WHAT THERE IS TO EAT? I am locked in my room and cannot access the fridge, pantry or cabinet of canned goods. WHAT EVEN. There. I feel better. I know it’s not the point, but it’s clear I will meal plan until I die.
OMG I am so sorry. Good grief. I hope your illness is not too severe, and kudos to you for locking yourself away to protect your family.
Fully vaccinated and I mask in public. But, it has been no more than the sniffles and some tiredness. Had I not lost my sense of smell, I would never have even thought it was anything more than seasonal reaction to pollen.
The vaccine certainly did it’s job. I’m so happy to be stir crazy and annoyed to meal plan from my room and not praying there is a hospital bed to keep me alive. I’m super prone to respiratory illness (no official diagnosis) and was terrified to get Covid. The vaccine is amazing. My taste is coming back in weird ways (I can only taste overly sweet and salty things with no nuance. My daughter wanted to make greenbeans with basil on them. My husband texted me “Wasn’t that gross?” Me: could not taste it. Didn’t bother me.
What’s the word that combines “sorry” and “enraged”? I am that, on your behalf, and I hope you get well quickly.
Oh gosh Melissa I’m so sorry to hear that! Glad it’s not a serious case but COME ON MEN, STEP UP! It’s depressing to realise that even in am emergency situation, they just… don’t.
Ok. So, I’m going to walk back what I said. I have my confirmed negative test and am allowed out of quarantine. I came out to done (but not folded) laundry, a spotless kitchen, mopped floors, neat kid bedrooms/play room, mowed grass with garbage at the curb. The house was cleaner than when he goes on a business trip. Plus he picked up all the school e learning stuff and got them logged in (they start today). He also had to cancel speaking at a conference (why are we having conferences in a pandemic?) even though he is vaccinated and confirmed negative. He worked full time the whole time too.
The fridge is basically empty and the kids report they had cake for breakfast yesterday. But overall, I’m going to sing his praises. Everything was so much better than I anticipated.
YAY!
Thank you for the follow-up!
Yay indeed! It is delightful to read this. And I am glad you (a) didn’t get too terribly sick and (b) are better!
I have a wife, and I totally recommend it. I don’t know if mine is just a general delight as a person and I got lucky or what, but we communicate well and try to divide things up based on what seems fair and who really hates which household jobs. I’m an anxious overplanner and she has ADHD so I do a lot of the household management, but she handles all the finances and a few of the super yucky chores, etc. I think neither of us takes the other for granted, which really goes a long way.
Yes I’m sure individual personalities come into it! And not being taken for granted is the actual dream, right?
I’m changing my username for this one to be more anonymous, but all the comments reminded me of my extended family’s recent vacation. Many families all stay together in one large cabin. I’ve been going with kids for awhile, but this year was the first year my relative and his wife were there with a 1.5 year old. Mid-trip my relative’s wife told me that her husband had told her that since it was *his* family’s vacation, she would be doing all the child related _everything_, while he vacationed. Which, indeed, she had been doing. My eyes rolled so hard.
OMFG
Next time, since it’s HIS vacation with his family, he can take the toddler and your in-law can stay home and have her own vacation. (Or I can loan her a shovel and an alibi)
This classic Onion piece is painfully accurate
https://www.theonion.com/mom-spends-beach-vacation-assuming-all-household-duties-1819575406
I was JUST GOING TO POST THIS!
This is why I shoot down every suggestion that we “just rent a house!” Ummm…..NO!
I went on a business trip, which my children call vacation. During this trip, my husband texted me a picture of an item we need to purchase for my daughter’s school. I had been to five other stores and had been unable to find it, so I responded back with merely “Yay!” That was all I needed to say, right? WRONG.
When I got home the night before school started, I asked where the item was. Hubby didn’t buy it. I blinked hard several times then went into clarifying questions so as not to scream. “So you finally found the item needed” yes “and you took a picture” yes. “And you know that I went to five other stores hunting down that item” yes. This is where my daughter jumps in, “I told him to buy it. We need it. I don’t understand either why he didn’t buy it.” Says the seven year old. WTF? There were clearly no plans for him to make dinner either. So the night before school started, after waking up at 4:30 am to get back from a business trip, I take everyone out to dinner and shopping for an item that cost less than $10. I’m still pissed today.
What the actual hell?????
I’ve developed an eye twitch of rage just reading this.
Shovels and alibis all around.
I read this out loud to my teenage daughter and we were both dumbfounded and outraged on your behalf!
Your story is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind when I decided to raise my child alone. I *know* I would end up either doing all the chores and resent the guy for it, or have to spend all my time getting him to do them and resent the guy for it. Now we have the agreement that I am practically and financially responsible for the kid, which means I also get to take all the decisions and don’t have to take his opinion into account. It’s tough in some ways, but when I see other parents of toddlers struggling to find a balance in their relationships as parents, I don’t regret my decision.
That being said, I often have friends and family who propose we do something fun, and then go on to suggest we go out for dinner. Now I can think of many things that are fun to do with a toddler, but going to a restaurant is NOT one of them. I usually propose something else (“meet me at the park with the enclosed playground so I only have to keep one eye on my child, not both”), but if they insist, I state my rules: once we are at the restaurant, THEY walk around with my child (inside or outside, I don’t care) until the moment the food hits the table. We eat, and when the toddler is done, WE LEAVE. If she has spent enough energy beforehand and she likes the food, this will give us about 30-45 minutes to have a more or less calm conversation. Not bad, and I get to have a beer on my own while waiting for the food to arrive… but not surprisingly, the next time we meet, they usually choose the park option :)
“Parenting is not something you get around to eventually.” A-frickin-men. That is all
I think that regular family vacations take as much effort as camping trips. Hotel trips usually require of me hours and hours to plan which route to drive, which hotel to stay at, which sites to visit, which activities to do, which restaurants to eat at, which snacks to bring, etc. Then go out and buy stuff just for the trip, make all the reservations, make pet arrangements, pack…then unpack and clean… It’s just as hard either way to me. My husband just packs for himself and does no other pre- or post-trip work.
Reading all these accounts of oblivious fathers makes my blood boil and reminds me of my husband on occasion. I remember when our twins were babies and we’d arrive back home from somewhere. He’d announce he needed to use the bathroom and then never come back out to help. He’d just stay in the bedroom and do whatever he pleased while I was taking care of our babies for hours. Never considered I’d ever need to pee or want some help parenting or g-d-forbid want a short break. Oh, THE RAGE
I thought I would be very blasé about hair, and so far, I’ve let my girls do what they like (which is mostly grow it long , sometimes spontaneously and suddenly deciding it has to be cut short asap). But my 11-year-old has been using colored chalk on the ends, which I’m fine with, except it gets all over her clothes, which I’m not fine with. And apparently, neither is she, because today she announced she wants to permanently dye the ends pink. And I totally put her off. Her hair is very deep brown, and as far as I know, adding permanent color to dark hair requires bleaching first (really, I have no idea, I just don’t see how it would work, otherwise). I realize it’s just the ends, so not that big a deal, it can be cut off, etc. But honestly, I became terrified of her entering a cycle of constantly bleaching, dyeing, stripping, and changing her hair for the next 7 years and I thought maybe 11 is too young to start that cycle and I should set some limits after all? Aaargh. Maybe we’ll compromise and see about doing a rinse out just for the ends. I really hating when parenting ideals run into reality.
For what it’s worth, my kids were allowed to put bright colours in their hair from the time they first asked. I think maybe my son had a streak when he was 4 or 5? We did do some bleaching too to make it brighter, but started at least an inch out from their scalps so they didn’t get harsh chemicals on their skin. Now that they’re teenagers they’re not interested because it’s too “little kid” for them.
If anyone seemed dubious I would point out that having bright colours is probably the most fun for kids when they’re kids, and it’s not like they had to worry about jobs or anything yet.
I’ve recently been reading FB posts though about strict dress codes at some schools in the US and that there can be rules about hair, but that’s not an issue at the school board my kids are enrolled in.
I pretty much let my daughter color her hair however she wanted in junior high. She had it a real pretty auburn for awhile. Then she stripped it to change colors, and it was the most gawd awful orange color, and it wouldn’t hold any other color. I couldn’t get her in to a stylist for a couple of weeks, and she hated it so much. I had to pay a couple hundred dollars to fix it, and I told her she could keep dying her hair, but I was never paying to have it corrected again. She sticks with much more subtle colors now. :)
Ugh, hate, not hating.
On hair, we are also a “it’s your body and hair grows back/grows out” family. Fordon was Aang the Avatar for Halloween (and a couple of costume contests) and so he got his head shaved absolutely bald a few times. Later, he got the ends of his naturally almost-black hair dyed blue for a while, then pink, then gold (all of which required bleaching first, and I insisted on a professional job for it, because I’m not messing with that). Now, he’s 19, off at college, and he is happy he got to play with his hair.
My son has made some hair-related choices that tested my ‘it’s only hair’ and ‘I allow my children bodily autonomy’ tenets as well. It’s hard, but good for you. And pockets are awesome. And I’m trying not to go “WHAAAT” about the Paul-on-vacation stuff, but it’s hard. And I am bothered when the sinks aren’t perfectly cleaned and dried but not bothered enough to actually do the toothbrush-and-baking-soda thing, although now I kind of want to.
I certainly sympathize with all the Not a Vacation remarks. But as I read your account, what struck me was that this was more about “If I (Swistle) do not look out for the children, no one will.”
In my first marriage, my husband was the worrier and I was the, “Oh, it will be fine, don’t be a fuss budget.” person. This was not the tipping point of our marriage, but it didn’t help.
In later, less emotional, years I came to see that he not only had to do more stuff to believe our daughter was safe, he felt that he Couldn’t Trust Me.
I don’t know if this suggestion is helpful, and you may have already thought about it.
But the dynamic was so familiar, I thought sharing an outsider’s point of view might be useful in case you were planning to Have A Talk with Paul about the event.
Your blog is one of my daily comforts and I appreciate all the insights and humor you share.
I have a saying that every generation of women is obligated to raise a generation of men that will provide a better selection for the next generation of women than we had. Does that make sense?
Trying hard to really not sound creepy but I know my son is a better catch than my ADORED AND BELOVED husband!