Please don’t ask me to do any more than what I’m already doing. Certainly don’t try to tell me or guilt me or shame me into doing more. I’m very literally hanging on to my elusive sanity by a very frayed, unwoven thread, friends. Picture my current mental state as a two-ton piano being hoisted out of a four-story downtown building by a single piece of dental floss.
That’s where we’re at right now.
Background: I was at a professional meeting, and a middle-aged man was interrogating me on why I wasn’t more involved. “Well, I work full-time. Then, after work and on weekends, I help run my husband’s business. I have two toddlers who keep me very busy. I’m exhausted. I just can’t right now.” I thought that was pretty clear. I listed my responsibilities. I gave my reasons. I even emphasized TO A STRANGER that I was already spread too thin; that I was exhausted.
His response? “Oh, come on. When my kids were little, I worked full time and I was president of this organization!”
Cool, man. And when you were at work, who was taking care of your little kids? Who was shuffling them to school or daycare, making dinner, getting groceries, vacuuming your house, keeping up on when your kids outgrew clothes and making sure they had jeans that fit, scheduling doctor’s appointments, filling out paperwork for school, making sure utility bills are paid, making sure ballet class and swim lessons are scheduled and paid for, and running your household? Was it you? Did you do all of that after work and in between all your other obligations?
I’ve got my guess, and it’s probably right. It wasn’t you, bud. I’d bet my left kidney it was your wife. So, yeah, you were able to do all this great, important stuff for your profession “while your kids were little” while also having a career, but it was because you weren’t also carrying the mental burden of running a household.
I want to scream loudly that exact thing to every man or person who asks me to do more.
(I bet he even had time to take a long, hot shower every day, too. Like a really good one, where he got to actually wash his body without a toddler in there with him, crying because you’re “stealing all the water” when you try to quickly shampoo your hair.)
Moms are treading icy cold water, and the only reason we haven’t completely sunk below these pandemic waves like a frozen Jack Dawson in Titanic is that we see the light at the end of the tunnel. (I really wanted to insert that dramatic photo of a blue Leo DiCaprio slowly submerging below the ice-filled water and say, SEE? THAT’S ALL MOMS EVERYWHERE RIGHT NOW! But, you know, copyright laws.)
Help is coming. Normal is coming. The life preserver is coming. It has to be. Nothing lasts forever, I remind myself daily. I can do anything for a short period of time, I remind myself daily. I’m not alone in this, I remind myself daily.
But until we’re all on the other side of this, stop asking moms to do more. Working moms, stay-at-home moms, working-and-staying-at-home moms, single moms, moms who look like they have the biggest support systems, all of us. Stop asking us to be more involved, be more grateful, be more helpful.
