Me Time

A book blew my mind recently. Books are great! I really should read more of them.

But, life with kids, right? It's a blur of cooking, finding creative ways to avoid cleaning, going to activities, helping with homework, and making it all disappear at the end of the day with wine and bad TV.

Anyway, back to the book. It was about Puritan family life in New England. (I was at my local library waiting for my kids to finish karate class. Selection was limited.)

I was struck by how much work those Puritan mommies did. Not just the running errands kind or the loading-things-into-machines-that-clean-them kind. I mean hard, physical labor. Planting, mending, keeping animals, churning butter, chopping wood, dragging poor quality water out of wells and boiling it to make it safe, cooking vats of stew over fires.

Of course, it's not news. Anyone who didn't sleep through social studies knows this. It's just that when you're a parent, you understand things in ways you never did before.

Like, why your mother drank.

Or how much work those Puritans--or any pioneers, for that matter--would have had to do to keep everyone fed, clothed, and mostly clean.

And I was also struck how many kids they had. As many as they could pop out within a lifetime. And guess what? It wasn't just to be fruitful an multiply. Most families wanted all those kids. No, it's not news. It's what small-scale agrarian societies do – because apparently kids can be helpful.

Between the cooking and the gardening and the scouring and the preserving and the birthing and the candle-making—not to mention the hours and hours of church—where was the Me Time for those moms?

I'd really like to believe that some of them sneaked away somewhere with a teacup-full of cider to have some “time with God.” And hey, maybe some of them did.

But I think their Me Time mostly came from living in small communities, with hardly any stuff, where you could go off and churn some butter if you needed some time alone. You didn't have to constantly supervise your kids. And you could rely on your helpful kids because it was fine to let 9-year-olds babysit six-year-olds, and six-year-olds care for two-year-olds. 

And those two-year-olds? You can bet they knew how to tend a fire properly.

Not my kids. My kids are like cute, disobedient pets. They keep rolling their eyes at my instructions. And when they do manage to do a job I sometimes doubt it's worth the $1.50 I promised them for it. They're lovely children, don't get me wrong. But as householders? Meh.

I know it's my fault. I haven't been a strict enough enforcer. I can barely enforce myself. Most of my efforts go into resenting housework and then writing about it--and even that's pretty limited. 

Finding ways to make kids do work is excruciating for me. Sure, they'll help me make banana bread or clean their room with me, but doing it on their own? It requires lectures on their changing responsibilities, job charts, stickers, keeping track, and all that planning and attention to detail.

I'd rather be churning butter.