some thoughts about work and idleness
Jul 13th, 2008 by learningumbrella
I’m working through some questions about work ethic, and whether my DH is right when he says I just can’t relax and have fun. That I am basically the enemy of relaxation and fun, including in others.
In the past, I have put “have a good work ethic” at the top of my wish list for my children. I really do feel that a good work ethic is important, and yet I have chosen to marry a person who feels very differently about that. In fact, I don’t just feel that a work ethic is important - my sense of worth and identity is very much tied up with how hard I work. I am the child of a workaholic, after all, and also from a midwestern German-American family. Work hard, eat a lot at meal time, stick together with your family, etc were the values I heard and saw expressed.
So I’ve been wondering if I can learn to relax, and have a bit more of a laid-back attitude about things. I want to relax, have fun, be fun - but at the same time I want everything to still run smoothly and the house to still be clean and all the work to still get done. Perhaps I can’t have both? Or can I still keep things going but just lose the desperate, fearful-that-someone-will-think-I’m-lazy, insecure, competition-to-work-the-hardest attitude?
With these thoughts swirling, I saw this post at Farm School. Some very cool ideas there. Then I went to the library and found How to Be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson. True to form, I am treating relaxing as a project or a school assignment, and now I’m researching it.
I really dislike the author’s arguments, and reading the book is a lot like reliving some of the big marital arguments DH and I have suffered through during our relationship. The book is organized into chapters bearing the hours of a day as their title.
8am: Getting Up is Hard to Do. The author argues that men (he always uses the masculine - I don’t think he’s talking about women much) weren’t meant to get up, but should instead stay in bed. “Simply invest in earplugs, black-out blinds and eyeshades. With these simple devices, you can extend your doze time. In the case of young children, the earlier they can be trained to get themselves up and prepare their own breakfast, the better.” This is his only mention I’ve found of children, also. So my argument with the book goes - who says 8am is when you get up? I’ve already been at work for an hour by then. What if you like the morning? Why should I have to be quiet in the morning to accomodate your decadent lying in, when I really like a brisk bit of music in the morning? Wait, that last was an argument I had with DH.
9am: Toil and Trouble, in which the author explains how the Industrial Revolution was a terrible plot by the agents of business and religion and government to enslave the working man (men again, no real mention of women). What strikes me is how many different ways I’ve read of interpreting “how we used to live”. I’m starting to not really believe any of them - every book puts its own slant on it to persuade us that what we think is the norm now doesn’t have to be. Well, do we have to rewrite history in order to imagine something better? I’m tired of rewriting pre-Industrial lifestyle to prove some point.
And it goes on from there, to defend sleeping in, “skiving” (a British slang?), taking a long lunch, etc. The book doesn’t tell me how to be idle - I think I would have to dump my kids, house, job, etc and just be a smoking, drinking, and most importantly, male individual. Things I can’t do. But I continue to read, and perhaps I will find a gem in here that will actually help me learn to relax. More later.
Sounds like an awful book. But I’m generally opposed to the workaholic concern that we have to be productive all the time. I suspect you’ll have to find your own way to figure this out. Because if you married the guy and want to stay married to him, (and even if you don’t you’re stuck co-parenting with him), you are going to have to figure out something that works in terms of values to pass on to the kids. Good luck. It’s a toughie.
I think it helps to know that much of the book was written tongue in cheek :).
I have to say I’ve found it much easier to be “idle” and to ease up in certain areas as I get older and there just seems to be more to do in a day, compared to when I was young and single and there were enough hours in a day!
Something else I’ve learned with kids is that the days when the house is clean and dinner is planned and so on are the times when I find it much easier to let go and have fun, because I know that our fun and relaxing won’t let the day go off the rails. The days when we have too much fun and haven’t been looking after things are when we end up eating spaghetti for dinner amidst piles of paperwork on the table…
I grew up in a very German work-til-you-drop-and-then-work-some-more home. Over the years I’ve had to learn that there is a big difference between working hard because it fulfills you and working hard because there is something pious in always working and it makes you somehow more superior than others who are *gasp* lazy because they are not working. I am not in any way saying this is how you come across, it is totally my experience with my background that I’m bringing to the table. I began to see that there was something a huge martyr component to my childhood home and it managed to suck the fun out of almost everything. I realized that was not something I wanted to continue with my own family.
In a way I consider my adrenal health failure a blessing because it has forced me to slow down and let many, many things go. I imagine you will find a way to reach a happy medium on this and hope you have fun getting there.
I really dislike continuing a book, hoping it will get better. I don’t like doing that with movies either. Maybe you keep reading because the idea of not finishing something bothers you? Is it possible to skip to the afternoon somewhere, in case there are tips for relaxing afternoon activities?
Seems to me the book you need would be called “Know When to Stop”, or maybe “Being Okay With Just Enough.” In fact, if perfectionism is your issue, you might check out this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Never-Good-Enough-Yourself-Perfectionism/dp/0684849631/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216055493&sr=8-2
I’m not nearly so strict about cleanliness or organization, but I get it anyway. There are some things that I can’t let go until it’s done, even if it kills me. Here’s hoping you find some way to relax without losing your mind
I guess I might be poking a sore subject, but could your constant working be somehow related to his lack of motivation? My DH and I used to bicker about this when the kids were young. WHile he works hard outside the home, he is the polar opposite at home, and often complained that I never sat down with him and made him stressed. Once he realized that if he would help a bit, it would be easier for me to relax. Also, you will find more time now that you won’t have so many littles underfoot!