If someone were to ask me: “How are you? What are you up to these days?” I would probably scream back at them, in a quite frenzied state, “Life! I have been doing life!” Right now, things are stressful…very stressful. I’ll explain the reasons for all that stress in a second. But, before everyone gets all worked up, let me clarify that I am fine. Altogether, things are fine and I am on top of everything. There is no need to worry about me venting. Life is hard. It is hard for everyone. Writing is just one way that I deal with the struggle that is life. Writing allows me to wrap my mind around my thoughts and it helps me to process my feelings.
As I have written about before, I am a stay-at-home parent, which means I am a full-time caregiver to our two, young children. They are now 3 and a little over 1.5 years old. I love them to bits, but (shit) they are a lot to deal with singlehandedly. I have no clue how the stereotype of the bored stay-at-home parent developed (possible future blog post!), because I can tell you that myth is a complete and utter lie. Damn, I wish I were bored. If my problem were boredom, things would be a lot different.
I am the opposite of bored. I am insanely busy everyday, every night, every hour, and every second. My life consists of running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Being a full-time caregiver means attending to the wishes of other people 24/7. Thus, currently, my life is consumed with the constant need fulfillment of others. Since my kids are very young, fulfilling their needs also means partaking in a guessing game, as they are not very good at expressing themselves. And, if I guess wrong? Well, I get screamed at like the world is coming to an end by 1-2 toddlers on an hourly basis. So, yeah, boredom does not really fit my daily existence.
The persons I care for are not adults, so I cannot reason with them. I don’t get sanctioned breaks. I’m lucky if I can escape to the bathroom alone. (I’m serious on that.) Being able to sit down and eat? Nope, not a chance. I eat in between preparing meals and cleaning up meals. Crafting clever emails or messages? HA! I’m lucky if I can grab a second to write a sloppy response that makes no sense to anyone. Talking on the phone? You’ve got to be kidding me. If I try to pick up the phone and have a somewhat intelligible conversation, my kids act like they are members of the suicide squad in their attempts to burn down the house. Scheduling appointments for myself (forget getting my nails or hair done, I’m talking about annual physical exams) is like trying to complete a quantum physics equation. Do I take the kids with me? Will the appointment interpret their meal and sleep schedules? No one knows and I usually give up trying to figure it out. Resting when sick? No way in hell. Although I would love to take a sick day, there is no one else who can easily cover for me and take care of my toddlers, and if my kids were left unattended, they would probably kill themselves (I am not kidding).
When I was young (and childless), I often thought that being a full-time parent would be easy. All you have to do is set up some toys for the kids to play with and then you can do your thing, right? God, I was so naïve. For starters, you have to have eyes on your kids, especially toddlers, constantly, because they have no sense of safety. They simply do not understand the concept. Try elucidating life and death to a toddler. Trust me, it’s not fun and it feels wrong. Toddlers are so basic in their grasp of concepts and ideas that it is near impossible to explain to them something as deep as their life ending.
My three-year-old is getting better with avoiding things that could potentially kill her, but I still need to constantly monitor her. My 1.5 years old son is another matter; that kid cannot be trusted in anyway shape or form. Here’s a great example of how nerve-racking it can be to care for toddlers. The other day, I was pleasantly talking to my daughter (the usually safer of the two kids) about lunch. She was sitting on her knees on one of our kitchen chairs. She was facing forward, but her legs and feet were behind her. As I began preparing the meal, she looked at me with slight terror in her eyes, and whimpered: “Mama, my foot is stuck. Mama, it hurts. Help me.” I was in disbelief. What the hell was this kid talking about? I walked over to her and realized she had wedged her entire foot up pass her ankle in between the rungs of our kitchen chair. It looked awful. Her foot and ankle had already started to swell and turn a color. She was screaming in pain at this point. I started to cry. My poor son ran into a corner and looked out at us like it was Armageddon.
No matter how hard I tried, her foot was not coming out the way it went in. My daughter was now getting extremely hysterical because of the pain, she pleaded with me to get scissors and cut her out. (Obviously, I knew that was not an option.) I almost called 911, but I feared that they wouldn’t arrive in time. I honestly thought she might lose her foot because there was no circulation going to it. I ended up tipping the chair over to the side and laying her on the floor. I, as gently as possible, pulled her foot to the top of the chair where there was more room and I started to kick a rung of the chair. My goal was to free her by breaking the chair. Somehow, my furious kicking helped my daughter wiggle her foot out. She was freed but her poor foot and lower leg looked horrible. Just horrible. After my tear-filled call to her pediatrician, I gave her ibuprofen, elevated her leg, and had her ice it throughout the day. I was convinced that I had broken her foot. But, the next day it looked much better and she was able to walk. The point of this story is that a toddler can make the simple act of sitting in a kitchen chair into a very dangerous situation. And, I even had eyes on her when the event occurred! So, yeah, getting meaningful work or chores done while I watch my kids is out of the question.
Then there is the discipline factor. Again, before I had children, I told myself that I would be strict and not let my kids walk all over me. Well, guess what, things change when everyday of your existence is a constant battle with two toddlers. You pick and choose your fights. You can’t go to battle with them over everything; no one can survive that constant war. So, sometimes you end up giving in and letting your kids make an ungodly mess with play-doh, because you know you need to conserve your energy so that you can attempt to coax (but eventually force) them to eat some part of their lunch.
Now, look, I know myself pretty well. I know that to maintain my sanity, I have to preserve my creative identity. That is why I continue my historical research and writing with this blog and my book manuscript. Even though I am exhausted after dealing with the kids all day, I make sure I carve out time to write when my husband is home during the evenings and weekends. But, here is one of the current stressors, because of certain circumstances at my husband’s work, he is going to be traveling a lot (and I mean a lot) over the next couple of months. That means I will be solo-parenting a lot. That means that not only will I not have the help of a partner to look forward to most evenings and weekends, but I also won’t have much time to escape to work on my research and writing.
As I have detailed before, I have an anxiety disorder. In this case, my husband’s travel is causing both an immediate and slow burn. On the one hand, I am anxious about solo-parenting for so long. Let me be clear: I can do it. I have done it before and I know I can do it again. I don’t need reassurance. But, my patience usually runs thin while caring for the kids by myself constantly with no relief in sight. Towards the end of his trips, I usually end up losing it and snapping at the kids, which I always feel horrible about. I know that losing one’s patience with young kids is typical and understandable, but the guilt is still a lot to swallow and my anxiety about getting angry with them usually ends up causing a self-fulfilling prophecy. But, like I said, I do know myself, and hopefully if I pace myself I will be able to avoid getting too short with them.
The slow burn deals with my book manuscript. My manuscript is based on my PhD dissertation; it uncovers the competing civic ideologies embedded in the original conflict over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). After graduating with my PhD, I have made significant progress revising my work from a dissertation to book. But, to be honest, there are more revisions to be done. I promised myself that I would turn my attention (when I am not parenting) to the manuscript this spring because, as I mentioned before, an editor from a university press expressed considerable interest in my project last fall. I am supposed to reconnect with the editor this upcoming September with a polished book proposal and manuscript.
Now, for a book manuscript with an academic background, it is more prestigious to be published in a university/academic press than a typical trade press Trade presses are the kinds of publishers that print the popular books that we see on the New York Times bestsellers list. Trade presses are in the game to make money. But, university/academic presses are nonprofit or, in other words, they could care less about money. I know that makes little sense to people outside of academia or outside of the scholarly world. But, academic presses publish works to add new knowledge to the scholarly realm; they are not interested in making tons of money for the author. So, their idea of success does not revolve around money; it revolves around producing transformational knowledge.
Academic publishers are also not like self-publishing presses, because they do not make their authors cover the costs to have their works actually put into print. Nonetheless, academic presses rarely (if ever) give their authors advances to cover the cost of living (forget about covering childcare). This is especially true for first-time book authors. As well, academic presses put their authors through a grueling peer-review process in which the author’s work is usually ripped apart by other scholars. If the author is lucky, their work is eventually published after even more revisions per the peer reviewers’ suggestions. In all, publishing with an academic press takes a lot of time, energy, and commitment—to say the least. And, all of this is done without much (to any) monetary compensation for the authors.
From the viewpoint of academic presses, they reward their authors with the prestige and vetting of being published by a university press. In turn, scholarly authors are attracted to academic publishers because publishing with such presses means that you don’t have to oversimplify your findings. Academic presses are not necessarily concerned with producing works that are entertaining and easily accessible to popular audiences, which ensures that academic authors don’t have to worry about compromising the integrity of their research to sell books.
Why am I writing about all of this? I don’t know, that’s a good question. Just kidding. There’s a point, which is that to publish a book through a university/academic press means that I will be footing the bill for childcare. There is no way in hell that an academic press will offer a first-time book author an advance that would cover childcare costs. That is just not going to happen. So, I will have to fit in time to work on my manuscript on the weekends and in the evenings. But, since my husband will be traveling so much over the next couple of months, a majority of that work will have to wait, and that gives me a lot of anxiety.
Academic work and research is cognitively intense (and that’s an understatement) so I can’t simply squeeze such work into the nights after solo-parenting all day and evening for long stretches of time. My mental strength will just not be there. I have been looking into hiring a sitter who can watch the kids for 3-6 hours a week (hit me up if you know of anyone!) while I work on my manuscript in my home office. But, finding a quality sitter who won’t cost a fortune is like a job in and of itself. And, again, the money to pay for the sitter will come out of our pockets.
Okay, so there are two other stressors in my life. The first has to do with who I am as a person. The intense daily (unpaid) labor that I am tasked with everyday is demanding, but some of its difficulties stem from the fact that I did not plan this life for myself. I never thought I would be a stay-at-home parent. But, I found myself in this position because of certain circumstances in life. As I explained in another post, I earned my PhD in history at a time when the job market for academics, especially in the social sciences and humanities, was at an all-time low. (It continues to be dismal.) I eventually had a “come to Jesus” moment in my job search a few years back when it looked like my best options for fulltime work (that would cover childcare expenses) would be either teaching as an AP history high school teacher or finding a research position in an organization that would probably only be tangentially related to historical work.
I am actually a pretty good history teacher (I know my shit) and I damn good at researching practically anything. But, my dream has always been to be a historian who spends their time researching and writing alone in the archives. That is my passion. When I realized that was not a possibility at this moment in my life, I decided that if I was going to be spending my time doing something that I had not necessarily wanted to do, then it should be raising my children fulltime. So, even though I had not planned for it, I am an around-the-clock caregiver now and I am (finally) content with my decision to remain one until my kids are in school fulltime.
Even so, I have to admit that there are times that I question if I am truly suitable to be a fulltime parent and that doubt stresses me out. I am an introvert—to the extreme. I absolutely need time and space alone. If I don’t get some personal space and alone time, I go bonkers. Ask my husband, I seriously go nuts. I am also a quiet person by nature. A lot of my thoughts happen internally. It takes a lot of processing power for me to piece those thoughts together and then voice them to someone else. So, the constant communicating back-in-forth and interaction that is involved with taking care of two kids is pretty difficult for me. Needless to say, by the end of the day, I am absolutely mentally and physically exhausted, and sometimes I wonder if I am actually giving my children the best, most enriching environment.
Now, this leads me to the second current stressor. In another post, I mentioned that our youngest child, my son, is behind developmentally. A couple weeks ago, we had specialists come out and assess him. It turns out my fears and suspicions about what was going on with him were correct. We are not dealing with the typical delays people often see with second-born kids or younger siblings. He is considerably behind in several fields. I don’t want to type out the specifics that the specialists gave me because they are alarming. I will just write that he is significantly delayed.
I am probably not going to go into too much detail about what we learned because I am still processing it all. I will say that even though he is pretty nonverbal he is still only at a low-risk for autism. Nevertheless, the specialists did suspect that there might be some other, deeper cognitive issues at play. They noted that he has an extremely uneven attention span and that they suspected that he might have Attention Deficient Disorder (ADD). As they explained, formal testing for ADD in children does not happen until later, usually when the child is in elementary school. Right now, because my son is so young, his mind is very malleable. If we, the parents, start to learn the right tools to help him now, we can begin to maximize his potential immediately.
So, we are going to start early intervention with him. He will have speech therapy and special education sessions. With early intervention, and if we keep up the daily lessons and exercises, my son should be able to attend preschool in the fall and be more on track developmentally. But, for the foreseeable future, he will probably need extra time, help, and attention in a number of areas.
During the assessment, while trying to hold back tears, I asked the specialists if there was something that I could have done differently. Did I not give him enough attention? Was his erratic attention span because I didn’t give him enough one-on-one time? They reassured me that with my son, his learning difficulties are not environmentally based. This is not an issue of the caregiver not reading to him enough or not modeling things for him enough. As they put it, he has deeper processing issues and he requires stronger tools to unlock him.
Now, here’s the interesting thing, which I explained back to the specialists. I also have learning difficulties. I was a late talker. I struggled through school. And, I still struggle with certain things that appear to come easily to others. I have been formally tested and I have learning “disabilities,” including ADD. So, as it seems to be the case with my son, I process things differently than a neurotypical person. I have been thinking about writing a post about what ADD is and what it is not. (It is a cognitive disorder, not a behavioral disorder.) I don’t have time to do that here. But, I will write that for me, my mind doesn’t make direct A to B connections. Instead, my mind takes the scenic route; I make connections from A to T to J to S and, then, finally back to B. It might take me longer to understand something than someone else who can easily make the quickest most direct connection, but my longer route does allow me to make additional connections that other people would miss.
In other words, I do not think of ADD as a problem or a deficient. It is not something to be ashamed of or something that needs to be fixed. I don’t even think it should be understood as a disability. It is a different way of thinking, but it does require extra tools to help the person be the best that they can be. If it turns out through formal testing later on that my son does have ADD, it is not something that I want him to feel bad about-ever. It is not something that we will cover up, ignore, or pretend that it does not exist. I will never let him feel that way.
At the end of my son’s assessment, the specialists told me that I was the best person to be caring for my son and to be helping him through this process because I have been through it myself. And, I do think this is true on one level. But, I have to be honest, the constant interaction, teaching, reinforcing, and stimulation that my son needs right now is daunting. Many times throughout the day, I just want to sit and zone out because my mind needs the time to check out. But, I also know that my son will not teach himself. He will not make those processing leaps on his own. His mind does not work that way. So, it is stressful to know that most days, even while solo parenting, I can’t easily rely on surviving by doing the basic amount of care giving. I can’t simply turn on the TV for my kids and tell them to entertain themselves, especially not with my son. To help boost his cognitive and language skills, I have to engage with him as much as possible.
Damn, this post got long. See what I mean about taking the scenic route? I just want to end with a few notes. First, because of all the craziness in my life right now, I might fall behind on writing my wonderfully researched and historically engaging blog posts. I’ll try to get something out each month, but shit on the home front is nuts right now. So, please forgive me! Second, as I mentioned in the beginning, don’t worry about me. I am stressed, but who isn’t? I am taking the lead in the problems I described and I am confident in my ability to manage them. I got this, and I know I got this. But, that doesn’t mean that every once in a while I won’t take to this blog to give an honest update about my life. Writing things out helps me to deal with the expected struggles of life. And, I know from experience that reading about other people’s unfiltered day-to-day toils helps to ease the tension that we create when we try to pretend that we all lead perfectly happy lives.
Finally, one thing I have learned over the past couple of months is that we all have shit in our lives that we are trying to handle. Every single one of us is dealing with something. So, please be empathetic to one another. Please don’t get mad at someone for complaining, because maybe at that moment they just need to complain. Please don’t get mad at someone because you think they are leading a perfect life; I guarantee you they are not. We all need to listen a little more, let others vent a little more, and be supportive of each other. Because, at the end of the day, everyone is dealing with shit.