The Prodigal Daughter

I’ve been away for a while visiting my father in Washington D.C.

It was supposed to be a trip en famille, the four of us trooping off to spend a happy fortnight with my dad in the Nation’s Capital and also at the country house, swimming in the pond and roaming through Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia (on the trail of the lonesome pine), but at the last minute Husband decided not to come for the majority of the holiday. It emerged he was in a quiet panic over the submission of a Very Important Paper to a Very Important Publication and although at first he tried to convince himself that he could finish it in between museum visits and inevitably messy ice-cream parlour soujourns,  it became clear that the only way he would be able to get it done was to stay behind without any distractions and obligations, so myself and the children set off alone. He was terribly worried that I would be furious with him, or greviously disappointed by his absence, but truth be told I was actually relieved that he was remaining behind to finish whatever he had to do rather than coming along and spending the time fretting about what he really ought to be doing.

We’ve had a lot of holidays like that.

Suffice to say we had a glorious time with the family on the East Coast. We hung around with the family, pottering around at museums, making cheerful messes at restaurants, enjoyed the enormous variety of construction projects and their assorted diggers/loaders that were on display within walking distance of the house (your stimulus dollars at work!) and generally didn’t push ourselves too hard. My sister and her boyfriend were charmed by the little ones which was entirely mutual, and we spent days out at the Virginia house with Six and Three delightedly swimming in the pond with the dog who was their willing and docile slave through the whole trip. I met with friends while my family babysat and went out to stylish restaurants, talked about my plans for my work, about shared pasts, laughed, remembered what it was to have real friends, use my mind and connect with people who I get, get me.
Husband came out for the last five days, relaxed and happy,  having completed his work, and then, all too soon, it was time to come back.

I wasn’t looking forward to it at all.

Not one little bit.

All I could think about was how flat and small my life seems here, how limiting the daily grind, how I have failed, somehow, to create a satisfying life for myself here in Stepford and we’ve been here nearly seven years.

Husband keeps trying to suggest that I may feel like this wherever I go, but really, I am a big girl, I’ve been around several blocks several times (maybe more than him) and I just don’t agree.

I believe in synchronicity and as we sat in the airport lounge at SFO waiting to transfer to our eggbeater plane back home, an article in the NYT caught my eye about how the market is punishing to mothers, how they lose out in careers and may never catch up. “Oh really?” I wanted to ask, but it hit so close to home I wanted to vomit, and I passed it on to Husband who usually doesn’t like to read these things as he finds it so intolerable that there are inequalities like this in the world that he usually just denies that they are there in case I hold him personally responsible (I don’t).

In the last few years, over 40% of married women with children under 3 years old in the USA have stayed at home to look after them, and this crosses all socio-economic classes. So if you have a couple of them, you’re out of the workforce for, what, six or seven years.

That’s me, folks. Seven years. These may be the most powerful ones in terms of moving on up that you can have. Where are our pensions? Where is our independence? Where are we going?

No wonder I feel like a 1950’s houswife sometimes -I AM a 1950’s housewife. Except it’s 2010 and I was raised to expect something else.

Normally I am the type of person who would just sit here and rant about it because I am most especially good at that, and I do a good line in resentment, too, but in an unusual step I have decided instead just to reveal my plan for climbing out of the pit, which is not without its costs and share of angst. I wonder what you will all think.

In September, Six will go to school until the shocking hour of 2.30pm. Then I am sticking her in an afterschool program until 5pm. Three has a nursery place next door to her school and he can stay there until 5.30 if necessary. This is quite painful to consider as I have so loved being with them more than that, organising everything for them, being present, making sure they had a warm solid maternal presence to keep them steady. I missed out on a lot of parenting one way and another and the thought that I might willfully deny them some kills me a little bit. But on the other hand, I’m dying a little bit anyway.

I am going to start going up to San Francisco at least twice a month and I am going to stay there for several days at a time. I’m going to get a room somewhere and get out there and find some business. I just can’t do it from here. I can’t. I’ve tried, it doesn’t work. I need to be there to meet people. And, dammit, I like the city, I want to be in one. I feel that I’ve done my time in the small town, it’s time I had some life in a city again, and if it doesn’t make sense for the whole family to move to one right now, at least I can get a fix and also revive my career before I turn into a corpse or a medicated/grumpy June Cleaver (spot the difference?).
Husband can pick the kids up during that time, and he’s brilliant at looking after them.  I know he supports me in this endeavour. He understands, and this is one of the reasons I love him.

You see, this change is not just about getting a life, it’s about saving a life.

Mine.

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