Before my Fourth of July road trip with my parents to the West Coast, Calvin and I had opposing views about the difficulty of balancing work and child care.
He would call during the day and wonder why I responded to “How are y’all doing?” through a perpetual haze of exhaustion and clenched teeth. Our conversations practically followed a script:
“What is going on over there?”
“Brat Central is in full effect: Remember that interview I had scheduled with the singer Ledisi today?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I reminded the girls this morning and they still insisted on playing right outside the door, so I had to go into the bathroom with the phone and the recorder so she wouldn’t hear the noise.”
“Mmmmm, that’s crazy. Did you make it to the store and cook dinner yet?”
“Yes, and they begged for candy and doughnuts the whole time I was in the checkout line. When you get home, I am done.”
“They’re just being kids, Lorrie; it can’t be that bad.”
Hah.
That perception quickly changed when Calvin kept the kids during his birthday vacation week. The seven-day period found him running Darius to and from summer camp, enforcing chores, giving baths, making meals and refereeing a pair of sisters who use the break of dawn as an alarm clock and scream with enough volume to shatter glass and put Prince to shame.
Meanwhile, between sightseeing in Las Vegas and sitting in the audience at a taping of The Tonight Show With Jay Leno in California, I was able to indulge in luxuries he mistakenly thought I enjoyed on a daily basis, but haven’t actually experienced since the girls were born: long steamy baths, recreational reading, channel-surfing and sleeping past 6 a.m.
I wasn’t able to work in the full-body massage by Idris Elba that I wanted, but having uninterrupted me-time and not hearing “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom” every other minute was a welcome respite from the daily routine.
Sure, Married… With Children’s Peg Bundy may have been able to shop all day, nap past noon and eat bonbons while Bud and Kelly were growing up, but that doesn’t describe the day-to-day routine of any mother I know, especially those who put in the long hours without an income to show for it.
When I returned from the road trip, Calvin jumped up to greet me with a hug … and an apology. “Lorrie, I’ve gotta hand it to you: Keeping up with Darius and the girls every day can drive anybody crazy. I see what you’re saying now when you say they can work your nerves. Nia and Layla just don’t quit!”
“So you see why it’s a struggle for me to remain creative, much less coherent, when working from home, running errands and keeping the kids all at the same time?”
“Oh yeah, I get it now.”
The misunderstandings we experienced are by no means unique. If it isn’t a spouse who’s unaware of the mind-boggling minutiae being handled in their absence, it can also come from childless busybodies who decide that, because there isn’t a supervisor or a time clock involved, “you aren’t really working anyway.”
Neglected or barely-raised children can result in rude neighbors, catty classmates and strangers who inflict their pain and rage on the world at large. Perhaps if more people gave conscious parenting the same respect as conscious career-building, we would have a safer — and maybe even richer — nation as a result.
Lorrie Irby Jackson is a Briefing columnist. Email her at lorrie.irby@gmail.com.
