A Woman’s Work is Never Done..

Today I woke up grumpy. Four got into our bed in the middle of the night and wriggled around, whispering and poking us for a century or so before I forced myself to get up and take her back, protesting loudly and threatening to wake One if we didn’t acquiesce to her demands. I staggered back to find Husband snoring loudly and sleeping in the ‘Star of Selfishness’ position so that there was no space left for me at all. I pushed him over and he started shouting at me that he never got any sleep in this house, he was sick and tired of it, and then promptly fell back into a deep slumber while I lay wide awake, fuming, and feeling hard done by.

I used to be a person who slept late, wore high heels and lipstick in sophisticated shades and had sex with delicious men who eyed me lazily over glasses of expensive wine at restaurants where it was impossible to get a reservation.

I was cool. I was hot.  I was urban. I was chic. My body was my own and so was my time. I spent my money on myself and weekends were occasions to relax, have fun and allow myself to be entertained by friends, lovers and the city.

Then I got married, had two children and moved to a perfect little town to raise our family. 

Now I wake up whenever I am told to, at around the time when I used to go to bed. I don’t have any high heels anymore because they are not appropriate playground footwear. I don’t wear lipstick because Four says it makes my kisses slimy.   That wine and delicious men? Oh, well, I married one of them, and he’s looking a bit worn around the edges, much like me, and he’s far more likely to ask for coffee through bleary eyes although he can be provoked to wickedness at a push. Restaurants, however, must serve fish fingers and ketchup and have high chairs.

I’m not cool, I don’t feel hot, I’m small town, I feel frumpy. My body is no longer my own and neither is my time. I spend my money on my children, although I do keep some back for myself but then I feel guilty about it. Weekends are spent entertaining the progeny. We see a lot of bouncy castles and playgrounds.

I know I’m supposed to wrap up with a sentiment like “But it’s all worth it because I love being a mom!” or some other such platitude, but I would like to state, for the record, that I would actually prefer to have 99% of my previous life back and then just add the children and Husband in his former, wooing state, plus someone to do the bits I don’t like.  I don’t like homemaking, I don’t want to go to the playground, it’s boring, I don’t want to join the PTA, I don’t want to pack fifty billion lunch boxes and I don’t like laundry. (I also don’t want to work full time and then come home and do all this stuff in addition). Not quite sure how I got stuck with this role other than the default position of owning a vagina.

So will someone please arrange things so that I, and countless other women in my position, can have less tedium, more stimulation, more options for viable, intelligent part-time employment, reasonably priced, quality childcare, more support, less judgement, and most importantly more RESPECT, thank you very much.

No? Well, just like all womens’ work, I guess we’ll just have to do it for ourselves.

And I want my heels back.

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