The Learning Umbrella

Driving around with Carbon in the back seat is an exercise in concentration for me.  He likes to talk, and his conversations take crazy turns that keep me on my feet.  And some of the ideas he wants to talk about are hard to explain!  A sample:

Carbon: “If there are vampire bats, are there vampire spiders?”

Me: “No, there is just a bat that sucks on blood, so they named it after a vampire.  There aren’t any real vampires - they are just a myth.”

Carbon: “Oh.  Are Minotaurs a myth also?”

Me: “Yes.  The Minotaur was in the greek myth about the maze, remember?”

Carbon: “But if someone said a word, and the word went into a black hole, could people never say that word again?”

Me: (Shifting gears, where did that come from?) “Well, the sound of that word - the waves that made that sound - would get stuck inside the black hole.  But a word is an idea, and an idea can’t get stuck inside the hole.  Other people could still think that same idea and say that word.”

Carbon: “But what about the first person who said it?”

Me: “As long as the person doesn’t go in the black hole, they could say it again.  Each time you say a word, you make a new sound wave.”

Carbon: “Oh. Well, do you know what the first invention was?”

Me: “The wheel?”

Carbon: “No.” (I think he was rolling his eyes back there - but he loves to think he’s tricked me.)

Me: “Fire?”

Carbon: “No, the Earth came first!”

Me: “Well, I thought we were talking about inventions.  Inventions are things that people have created.  People didn’t create the earth.  The Earth came into being when atoms - remember atoms, honey? - all got pushed together into a ball.”

Carbon: “Oh.  Well, do you know how to kill a zombie cat?”

And it goes on and on and on.  I can’t listen to NPR in the car anymore, because this little chatter box is in the back seat and I must pay attention to him.

So I had four days without the kids, while I went to my cousin’s wedding.  I finished four books in that time, giving me a slim chance of finishing my 8×8 in 2008 challenge this year.  (11 more books to go)

A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut is a short book of essays, which only took me 2 1/2 hours to read on my first plane.  I loved all of Vonnegut’s books when I was 19-21, and I enjoyed this sort-of-memoir.  Recent history (Bush, Patriot Act, etc.) have left him a “man without a country - except the librarians”.  If you ever liked Vonnegut, or if you enjoy a wry take on life, this is worth the time.

 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn.  This book introduced the idea of the “paradigm shift”, and it is itself a landmark in the intellectual paradigm.  I’ve meant to read it for years (it’s literally been on my shelf for at least 7 years, and I hadn’t read it), and now I finally have.  I wasn’t actually very surprised by anything I found in the book, but I am a product of the very intellectual paradigm that Kuhn introduced.  To me, of course science is organized around a widely accepted paradigm, and of course the paradigm influences the questions that are asked, the research that is done, and the “facts” that people can assimilate.  Kuhn’s writing is very scholarly, dense, and perfect for that style of reading I think of as “careful skimming”.  He states his point, defines his terms, gives examples, and then restates his point.  His point was pretty brilliant, though.

Twilight and New Moon by Stephanie Meyer.  I was traveling with my sister (14 yrs old) and when I finished the Vonnegut so quickly and realized I didn’t have enough reading material for the trip, she convinced me to buy Twilight at the little airport bookstore.  It was kind of funny to read it right after Vonnegut (he has a little essay about fiction formulas, and this is a formula work for sure), but for a pop-fiction, teen sensation, about-to-be-a-movie, book this one was actually pretty good.  Was it predictable?  Yes.  Was it a little silly? Yes.  Was it a stereotypical tapping into a rather insulting fantasy (normal girl is loved and contantly saved by gorgeous superhuman male, who is also dangerous and apparently rich).  It was total fantasy, pretty close to the romance novels I read at the age this book is aimed at.  So, it should be stuck in a genre that I don’t read anymore.  However, for genre fiction, the darn thing is actually really good.  It pulled me in with the addiction of a drug, so that I was actually ducking into bathrooms just so I could read a couple more paragraphs during the wedding reception.  The second book wasn’t as good (being even more a silly formula), but they so rarely are.  The books also manage to be intensely sexy without having any sex in them, which is great for those teenagers who understand the longing but don’t really want to get into the icky bits.  I really would have been in love with these books when I was a teenager, and reading them now reminds me of what that felt like, so I suppose the author did do a great job of reaching her intended audience.

Off to my cousin’s wedding in Iowa.  Will everyone survive without me?  I’ve been sick the last three days, so my preparations have been pretty rough.  Not at all how I wanted to leave things.  At work, I did the prep, and I sent my substitute a detailed list of what she needs to do on Sunday.  I submitted things early that will come up to deadline while I’m gone.  At home, I have my SIL sleeping on my couch right now.  She’s first shift at home, then the nanny comes in, then SIL comes back from work, then DH gets back tonight.  DH is going to work late tomorrow, the nanny comes in, SIL comes over after work.  DH is on his own for the weekend.  I didn’t get a chance to leave food in the frige for everyone, but I did do all the laundry.  DH thinks they will be fine because there is still cheese in the frige.  I really hope they don’t live off a brick of cheddar cheese for four days!

The last section is “Taking care of hearth and home”

This is the stuff of my discontent, and the real reason I picked up this book in the first place.  Housework!

Here’s a funny list from this section:

Top 10 Gender-Associated Tasks

1.  Men take out the garbage(dh does sometimes, but I do too)

2.  Women cook

3.  Men take care of the cars (if I waited for dh to be in charge of this, our car would fall apart.  I do a lot of this)

4.  Women manage the laundry

5.  Men handle loan documents (this has been true - when you have all the income to show, you’re the one people want to lend money to)

6.  women grocery shop

7.  Men managing recycling (we both do)

8.  Women mop the floors

9.  Men organize the garage (nope, I do)

10.  Women clean the bathroom

She doesn’t have yard work on this list.  I thought men normally did the yard work.  But for us, I do a lot of the yard work.  Really, we’re not gender-biased on division of labor.  We’re biased toward me doing everything and dh doing hardly anything, and that includes me doing things that are traditionally male.  So I guess that’s progress of a sort - I get to have the power tools and the cleaning supplies in this relationship.

The suggestion in this chapter that seemed really helpful was to sit down and assign your family standard of cleanliness, together.  This gets rid of the whole “you just have higher standards than I do” argument.  Ever since I met DH, that has been our line about why I do all the cleaning.  I have higher standards - as in I won’t live in a pigsty and he would.  But I shouldn’t have to live in a pigsty to live with him, and neither should the kids.  He doesn’t really want to live in a pigsty either.  But he told me in our most recent discussion of this that he is “just too lazy”.  If the job “isn’t intellectually stimulating and requires physical labor” he just won’t do it.  Good thing for him he can get a job that is intellectually stimulating, otherwise he would be a bum!

We haven’t found time to discuss standards yet, but I think that will help.  We made a chore list recently, but that was before the new job.  We’ll have to renegotiate it to take into account his new hours, and the possibility that he may not be home on a given evening or weekend.  There is a nice checklist in this section of the book, which includes things I didn’t consider chores, like sending birthday cards to family members.  We’ll consult that checklist when we renegotiate the chore lists.

There are a few things that would make it feel more fair to me, whether or not we got anywhere near 50/50:

1.  taking turns doing the dinner dishes

2.  folding laundry together when we’re both home

3.  keeping a weekend “big project” list and tackling those things together when we can

4.  Doing the jobs I find really icky: electrical/anything with lots of cords, killing pests (like mice!), worm bin care, catching spiders, and feeding the snake.  I will gladly clean up vomit and poop, as those jobs can literally make Dh throwup.  We all have the things we find icky.

Those four items are no where near half of what it takes to keep the household going, but it would feel fairer to me, and it would be livable without resentment.  Of course, he should continue to say “thank you” for all I do, as well!

Section 4 of Just Kiss Me and Tell Me You did the Laundry: How to Negotiate Equal Roles for Husband and Wife in Parenting, Career, and Home Life is “Raising the Children”.

The author makes a great point here, that parenting is about more than just showing up and changing a few diapers.  There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work for parenting, such as buying the diapers, knowing the brand that works best for your child, keeping track of supplies, taking out the trash when it starts to smell, knowing about diaper-rash, and taking the kid to the doctor if it gets really bad.  It’s not just being there and doing what needs doing in that exact moment.

DH and I have a huge inequality here, because he is perfectly comfortable with the idea that I am “the expert”.  We try to have discussions (or I guess I try to have the discussion, to be honest) about things like behavior-management plans, and he tends to just go with what I say and play “assistant parent”.  Of course, it doesn’t help that I have a lot of opinions in this area, and that they are all correct!

Seriously though, it is hard when I’ve decided my life-calling is children, education, and child-development, to not cast me in the role of expert-parent.  This is what I spend a large portion of my time thinking about, reading about, writing about, talking about.

I don’t think, based on our current discussions, that we are going to reach “equality” here.  However, we are going to reach a place that we think is “fair”, and that’s what the negotiation is all about.  We are talking about having a weekend session of “daddy school”, so that he keeps an actual hand in the kids’ educations.  For now, that might mean he does some workbook pages with Carbon.  Later, it might mean they have special projects that are based on DH’s skills.  He can teach Carbon how to write code and program computers, or whatever they want.  But I want him to have more of a stake in the education than just letting me do it.

There is a long checklist in this section, so you can compare who does what in your parenting roles.  Well, it was sad but we couldn’t find anything on that list that DH does on a regular basis.  When I did daycare, he took the kids to their doctor’s appointments and classes, but now I do that with our new jobs.  The other sad thing is that we don’t see things we can really shift over to him.  I am the liason to childcare, the clothing shopper, party planner, doctor appointment maker, nutritionist, cook, packer, toy sorter, etc.  I am the one that keeps a steady stack of somewhat pre-screened books in a basket by the recliner so that we can read to the kids.  I am the one that keeps children’s shows on our Netflix queue, and I am the one that makes playdates and takes the kids to the Children’s Museum.

The Intentional Steps in this section didn’t seem like they would work for us.  They are more organized for people who are going to put their kids in school, anyway.

Our Intentional Steps toward more Equality in Parenting:

1.  Daddy School ritual on the weekend, so he does some of the homeschooling

2.  Active participation in bedtime rituals when possible - recognize that we are equally tired in the evening

3.  Have regular parenting discussions and try to reach decisions together

Section Three is “Managing Work and Money”.

This is a big chunk of the book.  After all, here is the whole “mommy wars” subject - should women work outside the home?  Should we have our work as SAHM’s valued as work?  Etc, etc.

For us, in our current situation, we have this to balance:

We have a goal to homeschool our children.  Our family and our children are a high priority.

I have a full-time (40 hours a week) job, with flexible hours and a very short daily commute (15 minutes by car to the nanny’s house, then 5 to the church - it takes me 25 minutes to bike to church from my house).  It is a truly family-friendly workplace.  As long as I get my work done, and as long as it doesn’t become everyday, I can work from home, take my kids to work, etc.  My normal office hour schedule requires three days a week of childcare.

DH has a new job, 60 miles away from home.  It’s so new we don’t know how the demands will really shake out in the long run, but when he was hired the job was described as involving about 2 business trips a month, and allowing for one or two days a week of telecommuting from home.  He leaves home at 6am and gets home at 7pm.

So I obviously have the job that allows for more “unpaid” labor for the children and home.  We also have a salary difference, as I make a reasonable “teacher-like” salary, and dh making almost 3x as much as I do.

We’ve had a struggle in the past about work and the value of it, but I think we each value each-others’ work and career pretty well.  We have long-term financial goals, even if they are kind of fuzzy.  We don’t take equal responsibility for finances, as I do more of the work (a common issue for us), but we do make all the big decisions together.

The Intentional Steps toward Equality:

Step One: Value Each Other’s Work Goals and Dreams as Equally Important

I think we do.

Step Two: Understand the Cost of Parenthood

In other words, understand that a primary parent is losing some chances at career-advancement, etc.  SAH parents don’t earn social security credits, and are financially dependent on their spouse.  I may no longer need to worry about this for myself (I have my first ever IRA in my own name now!), but this is still an issue I think we need to address as a society.  Unpaid (or poorly paid) labor is what makes it possible for the “unencumbered worker” that companies want to exist.  Society benefits from unpaid labor, and should protect those workers in some way.

Step Three: Share Financial Knowledge, Decision-Making, and Responsibility

We do, although on a day-to-day basis he’s asking me “how much money do we have?” because he never balances the checking account.  But for the big stuff, we share it.  And we set a budget together, and we have equal “allowances” for our personal expenses.  It’s all “our” money, and “our” living-expenses, and we figure out how we want to balance it together.  I actually pay the bills, balance the accounts, and do our taxes, but we’ve decided I’m better at those things.

Final Step: Establish Work and Financial Goals Together

We do, I think.  We should have more goals, though.  And a will.  We should have a will.

Section two of Just Kiss Me is about Loving Each Other.  This is an area we have worked on in the past, especially just over a year ago when we were literally on the brink of divorce.  And even now, I don’t think we are great at this.  But, we didn’t do too badly on the little “Loving Each Other Quiz” in this chapter.  Still, we are going to work on what the author calls the “intentional steps toward a more loving relationship”.

Step One: Make Your Marriage a Priority

I think we do realize this has to be a priority.  We are both children of divorce, and we would like for our children to grow up with an intact family.  That means we have to stay together.  And staying together is just the first step, since we also want to be happy, and have a good relationship when the kids leave and we’re on our own again.

Step Two: Practice Forgiveness; Allow yourself to be consoled

You could call this “let the past go”, and that is important.  We’ve talked about this before in our relationship, especially in regards to letting ourselves see the growth in the other person.  I am a totally different person than I was when he met me.  I was 21 years old, had never had a relationship before, had never lived on my own, and was prone to huge temper-tantrums (I’ll admit it now).  I wasn’t very mature, and he wasn’t either.   Life responsibility, children, and time have really matured both of us.  But we have to stop thinking of the other one as still being that same immature kid that we first met 8 years ago.

Step Three: Agree on Your Couple Culture

What do we do together as a couple?  Not a whole lot.  We used to be defined by both being in the National Guard (where we met), by both being chemistry students, by our mutual fun from camping and hiking, and enjoying watching a lot of movies.  Now, he can’t hike because of a knee injury.  He loves his new motorcycle, but I won’t even get on it because I didn’t like the scooter and I’m sure I won’t like the upgrade.   Our taste in movies has diverged too, so it’s harder to agree on a movie pick.

We’ve been to the gym together once, and that was fun.  We want to do that more often, but I don’t know if that will work with his new job being so far away.  We like to talk about ideas and politics.  We probably just need a more regular date night, with time away from the kids so we can talk to each other.

Step Four: Manage Your Sleep

Thank goodness my kids are starting to sleep through the night!  That has been a long, hard phase in our lives, and I hope it’s almost over!  Now if I could just stop the running dialogue in my head that keeps going over my To Do list all night long and gives me occasional insomnia …

Step Five: Schedule intimacy and romance

This will be even more important with our busy new schedules.  Beyond a date night, we also need to schedule evenings where the plan is just to talk, or to watch a tv show together after the kids go to bed, etc.  We are busy people, but it’s important to spend some time together.

Final Step: Create Relationship Goals

Goal 1: A date night ritual, so we don’t get stuck with “but what would we do, anyway?”

Goal 2: more frequent date nights

Goal 3: schedule and plan for time together

Just Kiss Me and Tell Me You Did the Laundry: How to Negotiate Equal Roles for Husband and Wife in Parenting, Career, and Home Life by Karen Bouris.

I’m working my way through this book, and trying to see if I can come up with some strategies to make things work a bit better between my husband and myself.

Irony #1: I’m reading the book, and just giving him the summary version, because he doesn’t have time or interest in working on this

Irony #2: I’m reading this book at a time where he has just taken a new job that involves more travel and a 60 mile each way commute

But, we shall proceed regardless.

Section One:  Strengthening Yourself

I actually think I’m doing pretty well here.  Here’s the self-analysis quiz from the book:

1.  Do you accidentally talk in the third person about yourself, such as “mommy wants another glass of wine”?  No, never.

2.  Name the last time you had no roots or gray, shaved legs, and a perfectly accessorized outfit at the same time.  I don’t know if I’m ever “perfectly accessorized”, but I think I’m put together (and shaved) each work day - and double on Sundays.

3.  Are you still wearing nursing bras even though your children are in braces?  is you most recent pair of sexy underwear threadbare?  No.  I have nice, fairly new underwear and bras.  I buy some new stuff about every six months.

4.  Speaking of sexy, what is the sexiest thing about you?  What makes you feel sexy?  Well, let’s not get into that here.  But I’m fit, I’ll say that.

5.  Do you feel connected with your body?  What activities help you feel stronger and more physically capable?  I am going to the YMCA two days a week, to do some cardio and lift weights.  I’m bike commuting, about 10 miles a week.  I feel fit.  I feel strong.  I have muscles I can flex and you can see them.

6.  Name three actities you’d like to do on the weekend, alone.  When was the last time you had a weekend getaway alone or with friends?  Bike or walk.  Shop.  Get a massage.  I’m going out of town with my sister, and no kids, next weekend.  Otherwise, it was last March, at a Women’s Retreat.

7.  What were the last two books you read?  The last magazine article you discussed with a friend?  OK, really no problem here.  I am reading and talking and blogging, and listening to NPR.  

8.  If you could start a club, what would be the purpose?  Who would you invite? A book club or sewing club.  I’d invite my friends and probably place an ad for the larger community.  It’s fun to get new people involved too.

9.  If you could work on any emotional or psychological issues, what would they be?  Patience, anger-management, letting-go, living-in-the-moment, not caring so much what others think, and not worrying so much.  And I am working on it, but oh, it’s so hard!

10.  When was the last time you had a personal goal you achieved?  Are we talking little things like, “tomorrow I will get this mess picked up” or bigger things like “I will read 10 books this month from my book list” or really big things like “I will bake 1000 cookies this year and raise at least X dollars for charity X”.  I am a goal-setter, and I usually make it happen.

11.  How much time do you spend feeling guilty? Resentful? Angry? Comparing? Complaining?  Fearful?  TOO MUCH.  

12.  How much time do you spend feeling blessed and grateful? Peaceful? Confident and trusting? Generous?  NOT ENOUGH.

So my self-analysis tells me I’m doing pretty well on myself, but my emotional life needs a bit more care.  I get stuff done, I achieve, I take care of my body, but I still feel out-of-whack with guilt, anger, etc.

Of course, just because I spend enough time and energy on myself doesn’t mean that I’m not also doing too much for the rest of the family.  As my minister recently mentioned, in a dysfunctional system there are frequently many people who are “over-functioning” in order to keep things working.  And they contribute to the dysfunction, because they enable it to continue. 

I’ve been doing some research for a lesson plan I plan to use for MLK day in February.  Viola Liuzzo was a white woman from Detroit, who went down to Selma to help and march in the Voting Rights march.  After the march, she was gunned down while driving down the highway with a black teenager in her car.  What I found facinating in my reading was that after her death, there was backlash against her for being there at all, for not being home with her five children, for being a “crazy woman”, for being immoral, and for not following the rules of the South.  Even her husband was attacked, for not “controlling” his wife, and for supposedly being a communist/gangster (he was a Teamster official).

A very interesting American story, and a forgotten American hero.

From Selma to Sorrow by Mary Stanton, and a documentary called Home of the Brave.

P.S. - that book finishes off the first of my 8×8 in 2008 categories.  I am done with History Books!

Originally posted in January 2006:

I just read Buddha Mom by Jacqueline Kramer. The book is organized around Buddhist themes, such as meditation, simplicity, service, and unconditional love, but all of these practices are discussed through the lense of motherhood and how to make motherhood a spiritual practice. Regardless of your religion, this is an amazing level of integration between everyday life and the pursuit of your own spiritual growth. I was really inspired to see how my everyday life could be made so much richer and more meaningful. For instance, I am now inspired to view my time spent slowly exploring with Carbon as a chance to practice patience and receptivity. And her discussions of attachment struck a cord with me, since I know that loving my children also means letting them go. This book is yet another reminder to me that I don’t have to accept the dominant values of materialism, production/consumption, speed, etc. that I’m surrounded by in our culture. It’s hard to be a stay-at-home mom and think that you are “not contributing to society” or whatever other message you get from other people.
Here are some quotes I loved:
“By seeing ideals as a path rather than a destination, I could relax and enjoy the journey” (page 36).
“I sometimes think there is a real conspiracy in our culture against the enjoyment of housework or of any menial work for that matter. Somewhere the assumption has been made that menial work is an unworthy occupation of our time and must be finished as quickly as possible so that real life can resume. The tragedy of this assumption is that it makes a large portion of our lives seem meaningless” (p. 103).
“The giving of joyful service is like a well-nourished rosebush offering two roses where one is cut. The joyful server comes from a place of abundance and overflow; that’s the only way selflessness can be genuine. If the server is needy she is bound to become burnt out by serving, and all her good intentions will get washed away by the current” (p. 117).