Is My Work Worth it?
unedited thoughts from the bowels of SAHM* life
As soon as I start to write this the baby wakes up.
I have completed one whole week of solo parenting three children (with five more this go around still to go). In addition I am dealing with my mother in law’s continuing aging and cognitive and physical decline due to Parkinson’s.
It’s been a hell of a week.
I do not think people understand how a baby’s nap schedule is every thing.
How I must time my day around his naps. How last week’s time change fucked everything up and I am still dealing with the consequences of that.
If the baby does not take his naps, then he doesn’t sleep well at night.
If he doesn’t sleep well at night, guess who else doesn’t sleep well at night?
I cannot write at night. My brain needs fantasy, comedy, humor, decadence- it needs the third season of the white lotus, it needs the moms clamoring back and forth about the Sakura Bloom simple silk carrier drop that just dropped 10am PST Monday 3/17, it needs Ebay scrolls and Cup of Jo recommendations and Hannah Louise Poston make up tutorials.
I am creating all day long. I can’t understand Moms who also sew and make art and lift weights- what is not getting done? who is watching their children- where is that money coming from to pay someone else to watch your children- people saying being a stay at home mom is a privilege and yes in many ways it truly is, but also I have simply have never had a job that paid me enough to afford the expense of childcare - is making a baby not enough? I just kept the baby from pulling a plant on top of his head- aren’t you thrilled for me???? My body is making milk to feed a human 24 hours a day seven days a week in addition to making scrumptious nutritious food to feed my offspring who are always hungry!
I scramble to find a minute to write between nap and school pick up and setting mouse traps in my car and scheduling.
Yet why do so few people understand the work I am doing? Why do we think it’s o.k. that so many of us are doing this in almost total isolation?
If I am trying to make it seen that the invisible work of Mother hood is indeed a sacred work long over due for compensation, and yet I am not able to bear witness to it, will anyone ever know it?
If I am a writer and a writer is an artist and an artist is here to bear witness can I hit “publish” on this piece as is and unfinished? Can we frame it and hang it up in the gallery and people will study it and ask what does it all mean? Why don’t writers who are also artist publish drafts, notes, unfinished bits and bobs? This piece of writing, witness bearing while the baby now needing a diaper change punches the printer button below me and the timer for the muffins goes off and I have twenty minutes now before I need to gather the keys and the wallet, and the post school snacks and the diaper bag and the diaper carrier, dig out the re-usable shopping totes, double check I have all the things I need before I head out for the first school pick up of the day.
Will we continue to simply sweep women’s work, mother’s work, care work under the rug?
Nearly half of all children are on medicaid in this country. Medicaid healthcare has been my primary healthcare the entire time I’ve lived in Washington state. It paid for both my midwives, it paid for my babies vaccinations, my children’s teeth cleanings, it paid for the horrific boil I had to have lanced last year from an infection I got during the fragile time of early postpartum. But as many women note - in this country you can go into debt simply for giving birth.
How can I write then when my work of home tending prevents me?
Am I still worthy of the small monetary compensation this writing project generates via paid subscriptions? For weeks now I’ve thought I ought to turn off paid subscriptions since I have not finished a post for you readers in ages.
What if I kept the paid option on and only write twice this year…would that still be worth it to you? Some writers have turned off all subscriptions to make their content free, and I admire this as I have always had a hard time charging for any work I’ve done. Yesterday I went to see about a part time job for a disabled, single mom of two who needs help in cleaning and de-cluttering. I told her my hourly rate was $20-$25 sliding scale, knowing full well that local cleaners start rates at $35/ hour and that’s on the low end. Am I selling myself short? Is this simply b/c I know I have a husband who has money, parents who can bail me out (yet again if need be)- maybe so… or simply b/c I want work to be accessible and this is a way I see my ongoing life’s practice of mutual aid and community tending?
I have now solo parented three children while managing massive changes in my mother in law’s care team as her Parkinson’s continues to wreak havoc in her and our days- do you know how many hours of my days have been spent just orienting and educating new care givers? How ironic they are paid for their work, but also at a pittance, and am I not
Out of the blue I got an inquiry for a doula client which excites me.
And I am helping support this wonderful class coming to my town in May.
You can register here.
Western Washington is dreary as all get out and I am pining for the South Carolina sun.
My ex- partner- a man I fell in love with when I met him at the age of 21, who taught me so many things, who tried to support me in the ways he knew best how, who left me for another woman going from one shared bed to a next with no space in between proving to me once again that men need women way more than women need men, is now a fucking Trump supporter.
My heart is so heavy.
"Thank you so much for all your help.” I said to our/my son last night. He is 15. He is so handsome and kind and capable. He cooked us dinner. He bathed the babies the other night. He got the 3 year old ready for bed. The baby fusses when he sees his big brother because he wants to be with him. While my husband works out of state on our fixer upper house in SC, my teenager is helping keep things at home balanced and sane.
"I need to compensate you. I ought to give you an allowance.” He nods.
"Oh I see how it is” I say. "You’ll take my money for this work of helping tend our home and the little kids, but you don’t think I should get paid for this?” (referencing a family discussion we had with my mother the week before about care work and how he said he doesn’t want kids because ti’s so much work, and yet tells me that it’s not a job and therefore doen’’t require compensation.)
He nods, looks sheepishly at me, and concedes,
"Damn. yeh you do have a point.”
Now off to change a poopy diaper and rush off knowing I’ll be late for first school let out pick up all so I could write off this missive to you.
*SAHM- stay at home mom