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ON BALANCE by Kathy Buckworth
Balancing is Just an Act
2010/07/30
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For years women have been trying to define, discuss, and live their lives in “balance”. Besides being able to hold that perfect Yoga position for more than 10 seconds without tipping over, as the mother of four kids, frankly I’ve given up on trying to find any other kind of balance. Mostly for one reason – I actually don’t think it is the end goal. Because it can’t “be”. Balance implies that everything around us is in a) perfect harmony; b) that there are no uncommon stressors, c) no unforeseen circumstances or d) favourites. Clearly these factors can never exist in a house with children.
Perfect harmony? Only when they all happen to whine at the same time (this only happens every time I put dinner in front of them, but they each have different/separate complaints about the food I’ve prepared.)
Uncommon stressors? What, you mean like having to be at the two hour long school assembly at exactly the same time you have to deliver a career changing speech? Not to mention how uncommon, or unwanted, the stress of listening to sentences like: “Mom? I thought I had more time. It just came out!”
And what about those unforeseen circumstances? Who knew when you signed up for soccer that you were going to have to become a nutritionist and water camel who knew how to read a spreadsheet, just to get through half time intact?
And I really didn’t want to talk about favourites, but we can all admit there are always one or two kids that fall more into favour than the others, at different times, different ages, and different attitudinal make-ups. Teenagers are generally well advised to know that their little siblings are almost always going to be cuter, and they should watch themselves and keep their heads down. Mind you, an uncommon compliment delivered by a teen to an unsuspecting Mom could bring about perfect harmony in previously unforeseen circumstances, which might be, for a fleeting moment, “balance.” To the best of my knowledge, however, this has never happened.
I guess I feel that our kids aren’t perfectly balanced either, I feel no real need to measure up myself. Besides, my muscles are stuck in this Sun Warrior position anyway…who has time to worry about anything else?
Cleaning Up Your Act
2010/06/30
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“It’s the most rewarding and challenging thing you’ll ever do in your life.” How many times have you heard someone say this, about...Childbirth? Being a parent? Running a marathon? Giving back to the community?
While it’s true all of the above could easily fit the bill, what I’m actually talking about is something much, much larger and actually more commonplace than that. It’s a little dirty, so just be warned before you read on.
It’s laundry.
Yes, that’s right. According to a Twitter survey I recently did, “Laundry” is the number one hated chore...but it is paradoxically also the number two chore that people secretly like to do. (Vacuuming sliding into number one – I think this is likely due to the fact that you can burn a few calories at the same time, and we cannot discount the very satisfying evidence of labour left by the telltale lines in the carpet.)
For many Moms, there is a feeling of always being busy...and never getting anything (or enough of anything), done. Partly this is due to the fact that everything we do, the kids or our spouse undo seconds later (dishes, cupboards full of groceries, clean floor), and I believe partly also attributed to the fact that we do the same things over and over and over again and we never really get to check them off our “To Do” list. Unless the entire family were to walk around naked for a day, at the end of each day you’re going to have a pile of dirty clothes lying in the hampers, asking to be washed. (With my kids and the way they get their clothes dirty, I’m not exaggerating here – the clothes could actually be incubating a life form which would be capable of speech).
It’s too bad there isn’t a way of matching up laundry haters and laundry lovers, much the way you match up those socks. Anybody in for a Chore Exchange Program? I’ll take the vacuuming...
Here’s the top hated chores:
Laundry – Doing, folding, putting away
Garbage – sorting, putting out (big “ewww” factor)
Cleaning bathrooms – particularly when young boys are in residence
Ironing – not sure who does this anymore
Washing/drying dishes – never ends
And here are the top (secretly) liked chores:
Vacuuming – must be those little lines and the calories burned
Laundry – getting things done, starting clean
Cooking, Baking – even if own waistline doesn’t appreciate it
Ironing – again, who’s doing this? (Apparently you can watch TV at the same time)
Washing Dishes – feeling the warm water is relaxing (So is a hot tub, just sayin)
Pride and Prejudice
2010/05/30
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While the title of Jane Austen’s book evokes scenes of early 19th century England, with characters struggling to maintain morality, manners and their upper class edge, back here in the real world, nowhere is the concept of both “pride” and “prejudice” more prevalent than the experience of sitting through a school concert or recital.
Firstly, there’s still a struggle going on:
• With morality (is it really okay if I shove my camera in front of this other trashy Mom’s face? Her kid isn’t doing anything right now anyway and obviously mine’s more talented at any rate),
• With manners (look at that kid picking his nose right in the middle of the concert. So glad my son isn’t doing that…oh shoot.),
• And the upper class edge (I really think they should let the parents of the gifted children sit in the front row, don’t you?).
Then there are the things that some parents take pride in when they see their prodigy lined up with their peers:
• The combed hair, the pressed pants, the clean shirt and the right shoes. Myself, I was just glad I remembered not to let her wear the FCUK shirt.
• The scrubbed smiling face and the exuberant waves to Mom and Dad as they enter the gymnasium. I’m thinking if they scowl at me at home all day, why is it fair that they try to trick other parents into thinking they’re nice kids?
• The enthusiasm and professionalism while they are singing/playing an instrument and the attentiveness while they’re not involved in the performance. As long as they’re not coughing out the word “dork” every time that (really) dorky looking kid opens his mouth to sing, I’m okay with a little shuffling and shoving.
The prejudice? Well that comes in the form of the aforementioned camera shoving, some chair front row reassignments, isolated standing ovations and the annoying “Did you see my little…?” remarks at the end of the performance. I’m actually okay with the camera shoving and the standing ovations, because they sometimes conveniently visually block the fact that I’m on my BlackBerry. But no, I wasn’t watching your child. But it’s not because I’m being prejudiced – I wasn’t watching mine, either. Proud of me?
Some Things Never Change
2010/04/23
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While I like to believe we are living in a new generation of parenting, I’ve started to think the sad truth is that we are engaging in exactly the same activities, and conversations that have been going on since the caveman days. Yes, you wish your husband would put dishes in the dishwasher (or sabre tooth tiger bones in the lake), and yes it is very hard to fit in time to exercise (climbing trees for fun? I don’t think so), and children are still a) annoying, b) doing the same things in terms of learning how to walk, talk, sleep and eat and boring when listening to other people talk about. So think it might be worthwhile to put together an audio tape of the conversations you know you’re going to have during the first 18 years of your child’s life, to save us, and future generations, the time and the effort. Basically it would include:
1. “But I didn’t know how hard it would be to get a good night’s sleep”: From infancy, through teething, bed wetting, nightmares, snoring, sleep walking, sleep talking, late night hockey games, waiting up for babysitters to return, to exam cramming til the wee hours, your children will keep you awake from before they are born, until they leave the nest – and even then, what you don’t know, you don’t know, but you can do a lot of thinking about it when you can’t sleep yourself.
2. “I’m just a chauffeur!” Yes you are. Stop talking about it.
3. “You will never believe what she said to me.” Fights between other women. How fun is
it to talk about a big tussle that two women friends are engaged in? Very. We love to rehash the “She said”, “She said” conversations over and over again to make sure every little innuendo has been eked out. Maybe when she said “Your hair looks nice”… that’s what she really meant.
4. “And then guess what he did.” The theme: My husband is mostly useless at home/with the kids. No, they don’t know how to do the laundry, and no, they haven’t been in a grocery store for 17 years, and yes, they spend way too much time at the office, hockey arena, or Home Depot. Get over it.
5. “The house is just a wreck.” Laundry, ironing, wiping the kitchen counter, emptying the dishwasher, sweeping the kitchen floor, making beds and grocery shopping STILL SUCK. They are not productive ways to spend our time, yet not only do we still engage in it, we sometimes even consider the details of such activities worthy of talking about. It’s not.
6. “Why won’t they just listen?” Children are awfully annoying a lot of the time. We know. We’ve heard it all before. They’re annoying us with the very things we annoyed our parents with. Snap.
I predict that in the distant future, women will still be having these same conversations – in fact we’ve already morphed them onto Twitter and Facebook - whether they are over Cosmic Coffee at the Lunar Café or zipping along the long-awaited Jetsons’ patented electronic sidewalk. So if you’re in this parenting game now, settle in and prepare some answers when you have a spare moment – or on second thought just lean over and grab the notes from the woman sitting next to you at your child’s hockey game. Take her grocery list as well.
My Name is Kathy and I'm a BusyBody
2010/02/26
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“Are you busy?” I know I’m not alone in reacting negatively when I hear these words. Particularly if they’re coming from my teenage daughter looking for something scintillating to do with my time like driving her to the mall or the golden opportunity to wash her field hockey socks, or it might even be from my seven year old son standing in front of me indignant that I don’t share his excitement over playing (and deliberately losing) the game of Sorry for the 27th time that day. Meanwhile I’m refereeing the other two kids who are fighting over who has to put away the hockey net…and I know it’ll be me at midnight doing that task as well. Yep, the minute our children are born, we become eternally, frustratingly, tirelessly and mind-numbingly busy.
Non-parents have a hard time understanding how a newborn baby keeps people so busy. Here’s the thing: the busy-ness of a newborn parent should be measured in terms of the ratio of hours slept versus activities to be performed. That is to say it’s true that many of the tasks that are being demanded of you are fairly pedestrian and easily performed…if you’ve had a good night’s sleep. Did I mention these are parents of newborns I’m talking about? Once you reduce that sleep to 6 fitful starts and stops over an 8 hour period, washing sleepers, having a shower, and remembering where you put your keys down become Herculean efforts. (Not to mention that pesky detail of being responsible for sustaining a fragile new life.)
As the baby grows, and you decide it’s a good idea to have some more of them, (darn wine) you quickly realize that the busy you thought you had when you were a) single and/or b) childless seemed like a “good” busy. Now your days are filled with chauffeuring children to endless lessons, hockey arenas, friend’s homes, school functions and the aforementioned mall, while racing home in between to throw in that 7th load of laundry, unload the dishwasher for the 3rd time that morning, make 6 calls to 6 different doctors of teeth, bones, needles and backs, madly scratching out school registration forms, planning your frozen food dinner and trying to find the elusive ½ inch scrap of “blankie” for a wailing toddler…well it’s hard to find the “good” in the “busy”.
As my husband pushed a child towards the front door on the way to a ubiquitous hockey game the other day, he asked me “Why are we always so busy?” And I responded: “If we weren’t driving them around, we’d be watching them fight. It’s not a question of this versus free time. It’s a question of how you are busy. Now pass me the flipping Sorry game before you go.”
And now all I have to do now is convince my four kids that waggling a half empty glass of chardonnay is in fact an appropriate response to the question “Are you busy?”
He's Your Brother, Not a Target
2010/01/08
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I used to think I was doing my kids a favour by providing them with a handy assortment of siblings to play with, grow up with, bond with, share with, have a special relationship with, and most importantly to share the burden of planning for their mother’s old age with. I wasn’t counting on the added benefit of always having a sibling to punch, torture, condemn, condescend to, and generally ridicule.
With two boys and two girls (I’m a good planner), you would think that they would have the perfect companion for whatever activity they wanted to engage in. This is, in fact, somewhat true. Two of them play hockey, two of them enjoy golf, two like arts and crafts, two are into Zhu Zhu pets, two are into painting their toenails, and surprisingly, the lines between the oldest/youngest and boys/girls isn’t divided exactly how you’d think. (I will admit to purchasing a bottle of nail polish remover prior to an indoor swimming pool visit lest the other fellows in the change room were bothered by him.) On the surface, and for five or ten minutes at a time, perfect.
But the entertainment they most frequently engage in with each other is much darker. It involves laughing when a brother falls (possibly having tripped him in the first place), convincing a trusting little sister to stand under a bucket of water holding a broom handle, regenerating the old “Mom says you’re adopted” taunt, hidden pockets of hot sauce, and of course the universal “You’re so stupid.”
I’d actually like to do a study of top level executives and others successful in their chosen fields to see if the number of siblings increased their chances of making it to the top – because once someone’s told you your Mother treats you the best because you’re the ugliest in the house, I’ve got to think you’re well equipped to handle just about anything. Even planning for your mother’s declining years. You’re welcome, kids.
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