Staying Home IS The Job

This week onmamamia Mia wondered why there can be so much animosity between SAHM's and payroll mums.

I don't have the answer. I just know I'm not immune to this. I have judged and I have been judged. Since my eldest princess was born I have had various stints of working part time, full time, in an office, from home and now for the last 18 months I have been a SAHM. I find i get WAY more raised eyebrows about staying home than i did about working.

So having seen a little bit from all sides here is the thing that bugs me the most about the whole thing. Unpaid work is simply not treated as a job. If I worked as a Nanny for three kids under five, lived and travelled with the family, organized their lives and was on call at night, that would be a career. But when I do exactly the same thing for my own family that's, well, I don't know what it is, but it is not usually called work or a job. We wonder what we should put in the "gap" in our resumes for the periods of time we spend home with our families.

Look, I don't need you to tell me it's the hardest job in the world. I bet there are harder jobs, like flying space shuttles, doing surgery in frontline conditions or PR for Lindsay Lohan. But it is a job.

Do I get bored "at home"? Of course I do. Would I get bored at work too? Ummm yes. Do I sometimes slack off on my housewifely duties and park the kids in front of the TV or go out lunching when I should be cleaning? Yup. And when I was on a payroll I used to surf the net and have pretend meetings at the coffee shop with my work mates.

Personally I love being with my kids full time. With three kids and Mr MITB working his hours I'm glad I do not also have to juggle work and daycare at this point.

So what's my point? Ummm, it's all valuable, it all has to be done by someone. And for the moment, I'm the one doing it, so I'm going to own it. It's my job.

Perspective

"Every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last"
Charles Dickens

My little bro is having a baby at the end of the year and the other day he said to me:

"I just saw a really ugly baby at the shops. I hope we don't get an ugly one."

To which I naturally replied: "Don't worry, you won't."

Of course, what I meant was: "Don't worry, you won't know."

I speak with authority on this.

When Miss Rose was born, the first thing I said was "Oh, she's so beautiful!"

At the exact same time my husband snapped this photo

And you know, it's still one of my favourite photos of her. What a shame I had to crop out the still attached umbilical cord, and the other surgeon already poised with needle and thread.

Yep. The most beautiful swamp creature ever born.

It was the best moment ever.

A Ruby Day

Today is my Mum and Dad's 40th wedding anniversary. Their ruby anniversary.

I asked my Mum how she felt about it and she said that she doesn't even think of herself as 40 yet, so it seems impossible that she could have been married for 40 years.

They would die if I used their actual wedding photo, so let me recreate the scene for you.

My Mum was all Ice Queen with long, flared sleeves and a fur-lined hood.

My Dad was all Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka with a lot more facial hair and a little less top hat.

In their original photos there is a lot of hair and a lot of confetti. Also a lot of Mickey Mouse because the photographer took all the family and group snaps in front of a poster of him.

Their reception was at a Scout Hall and the food was Kentucky Fried Chicken (it wasn't called K F C in 1971 guys).

Mum and Dad don't wear wedding rings because "We know we're married" like serious hippies, but really because Mum stopped wearing hers after Dad lost his one day at the beach.

They are an awesome couple, and I could not have picked a better example of married life to grow up with.

Happy Anniversary Mum and Dad!

A Moment of Awesome Housewifery

Today we made cupcakes. I was expecting to sprinkle the heart sprinkles over the top but Miss Jade placed every single one painstakingly onto the top of every peak of frosting.

Then in some freak event the girls didn't want to eat the cupcakes and asked for brown rice for lunch instead. I think I have entered a parallel universe.

Birth

I have got 3 birth stories.
That is a lot of birth.
Before I had my kids I would hear of some celebrities giving birth by Caesar and think "pfft - that's not giving birth!"
Well, karma certainly gave me a smackdown about that.

I 100% knew that I would be having natural births. I also knew I would not be having anyone stick a big fat needle in my spine in order to put drugs in. I was going to do this PROPERLY. As nature intended.
Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.

I have had 2 labors and 3 Caesars.

I went into labour with Miss Jade at home. A couple of hours later I went to hospital. A couple of hours of vomiting, pooing, moaning and groaning later the midwife proudly announced that I was 3 centimeters dilated.
3 whole centimeters.
Oh. My. God.
I agreed to some gas for pain relief. At 7am my obstetrician examined me and said I was doing really well, I was 7cm dilated and gave me a lovely shot of pethidine.
At 10am a different midwife announced that I was fully dilated and would have this baby by lunchtime.
Did I feel ready to push?
Um, OK.
A bit of pushing and an embarrassing bladder failure later my obstetrician was back.
Hmmm, baby's head isn't really coming down, let's just check you again. Oh, hmm, you're only 7cm dilated. Oh and your contractions aren't looking very productive, and let's give you something to intensify those (INTENSIFY?! What. The. Fuck?) oh and most people have an epidural about now. I grunted that I would "see how I go" , but I was begging for it by lunchtime.

A long, painless, heavily monitored afternoon followed. A procession of people came and went. Hubby "popped out for lunch" with his brother. Eventually at 5pm my obstetrician announced I was still only 8cm dilated and she was going to organize a Caesar. Finally my beautiful Miss Jade was born just after 7pm.

I felt approximately like I had gone on a massive bender, that ended with being stabbed and then someone had handed me a baby to look after. I mean, I couldn't even feel my legs. In the first photos I'm holding Miss Jade very very tightly. Just in case I drop her. All in all it was a pretty awful day. Everyone meeting the baby kept telling me it must be all worth it when you look at the baby but I didn't feel that way at all. I felt like that was a fairly hideous thing to do no matter what the outcome.

I mean, I was totally amazed, astounded and in awe of Miss Jade. But that didn't change my birth experience. And also - recovering from a Caesar is where all the pain is, especially when the midwives fail to mention that you are entitled to anything other than Panadol for pain relief.

By the time I was pregnant with Miss Rose I knew I would never repeat that experience. I was not going to labour for so many hours to end up having a Caesar anyway. So I did the unthinkable and had an elective Caesar.
And you know what? It was a beautiful experience. And lightning didn't even strike me down when I wrote that. I was terrified beforehand. I didn't sleep the night before. But I had a fantastic anesthetist (Repeat after me: Endone, Endone) all went smoothly, and I was feeding the gorgeous Miss Rose by 10.30am.
The recovery had its sucky points, but I knew what to expect and I had booked in a lot of lovely R&R time to do it in.

For Miss Grace I seriously researched and considered a VBAC. But in the end I chose to have another Caesar. Then I went into labour 3 hours before I was due at the hospital. I mean, who does that? I had a very early morning surgery where Miss Grace came into the world screaming like a chainsaw. Someone put her cheek to cheek with me and i thought "i know you". Afterwards all I could think was "thank God I never have to do that again".

I don't think we have enough respect for birth, however it happens. There is really no easy way to get a baby from inside you to out in the world. I get so tired of hearing natural birth advocates demonizing obstetricians and vice versa. Yes, birth is natural, but it's not perfect. And also, it's a big deal. A huge job for the female body. Women need support to bring their children into the world safely, not attitude from the rest of the world about how it is "supposed" to happen.

So if you happen to be someone who does that - you should shut up.

So there.

Sent from my iPhone

An Open Letter to Coleworths

Dear Coleworths,

Consider yourselves on notice.

I understand of course that you have to advertise. You're running a duopoly here. How else would the general public be able to distinguish between your identical offerings. It's just that your current marketing leaves a distinctly bad taste in my mouth.

It's great that you're reducing your prices. Great in the way that it might be great if someone who has belittled, nagged and put you down for years tells you that they are going to do this slightly less often in the future. If you could do it, why not sooner? I can almost see your board of directors rubbing their enormous red rubber hands together with glee at their annual meeting - something along the lines of "we've fooled them for this long Roger and now we're going to make them happy about it" followed by maniacal laughter all round.

To add insult to injury of course - prices are NOT EVEN DOWN. They have just been shuffled slightly, which anyone who can read and count would have noticed. Yes Coleworths I realize that nappies, milk and bread are cheaper but when everything else is slightly more expensive I am not stupid enough to miss it.

So stop insulting my intelligence with your glaringly , outrageously misleading advertising campaigns. I have caught you big-red-rubber-handed. You are robbing me blind. As per usual.

Yours sincerely

Mumintheburbs

PS Please note I have edited this post to be 7 percent less offensive than the draft I wrote on the 13/08/11

Potential for a new blog - called "Too old for onesie?"