...Find Out What It Means To Me

Yesterday at lunch a good friend of mine’s husband told a joke.  “Why haven’t they sent a woman to the moon?”  Okay, I’m curious.  “Because it doesn’t need to be cleaned yet.”  I laughed out loud at this.  It’s a funny joke and it doesn’t offend my feminist sensibilities.  Why?  Because a long time ago I learned to not take myself too seriously.  That means that I’m not easily offended and that most things that are meant to be funny are indeed funny to me.  A lot of things that aren’t meant to be funny are also pretty funny to me.  My husband said to him, “Be careful, she’s a Woman’s Activist.”  To which I replied, “No I’m not.  I’m a stay at home mom.  I’m not on the courthouse steps holding picket signs.  I’m at home changing dirty diapers!”  My friend’s husband went on to say how much of a danger a quick witted, sharp tongued, educated woman is.  He said, “Now you just need to start a blog.”  To which I replied, “I already have!”  We laughed.  I’m such a cliché.  I know that my friend’s husband is not a misogynist.  He has a great sense of humor and he loves to laugh at himself too.  His retelling of this joke doesn’t imply that he echoes the sentiment behind it.  In fact, it showcases how ridiculous that sentiment is.  I then told him and my good friend, who’s a stay at home mom during the day but works some nights and weekends, about the time I heard a friend of a friend say that horrible thing about stay at home moms not using their brains and how I “put her in her place.”  We laughed again because the odds of that woman stumbling across my blog are slim to none.  Also unlikely is if she’d care about me and my no-brains opinions.  My friend said, “Well, sometimes it’s true.  Sometimes I don’t use my brain.”  I said, “Well, yeah, me too.  But she’s not a stay at home mom.  She doesn’t have kids.”  “Oh, then she can’t say that!” my friend said.  “That’s just plain disrespectful.”

That seemingly offensive lunchtime joke about women cleaning the moon particularly resonated with me. I had a conversation earlier that day with my group of mommy friends right before church started.  As I began talking with a few friends about the pressures of being home all day, a circle literally began to take shape in the lobby of our church as more women chimed in.  I shared my sympathies and contributed my stories, and we found ourselves on the subject of this misconception that just because you’re home all day you should be able to keep your house clean.  We commiserated about our husbands’ lack of concern and contribution to our daily chores.  One person even declared that her own mother sides with her husband.  “He’s been working all day, take it easy on him,” as if she wasn’t working all day at home, twice as hard.  My own mother has a tendency to side with my husband on certain issues and cautions me ever so often to watch my tone with him.  She is from a generation where men’s voices were significantly more important than women’s, even though she was the sole provider in our house for many years during my childhood.  I fain empathy in the area of husbandly contributions because truth be told my husband is a great contributor to our household chores.  He knew I wasn’t the tidiest of women when he married me.  We only do a deep cleaning of our house when we’re having company.  As far as daily chores go we have a system. I’ll unload the dishes and he’ll load the dishwasher, using his stint as a Denny’s dishwasher to prove he is an excellent loader.  I let him prove it anytime he wants.  “Hey, prove how good of a job you did mopping the floors too.”  My husband also does his own laundry, although, this could be because he secretly thinks I might ruin his nice work clothes since I am often distracted when I do laundry.  The only complaint I have of my husband in this area is that he’s great about doing his laundry but terrible at putting away his laundry, so we often have baskets of piled up clean clothes in our spare bedroom just waiting to be folded and put away.  There’s usually a stand off to see who will end up putting said clothes away.  And it’s usually me.

I sensed an emerging theme later that morning in church when my pastor began to preach on having the character of Christ and viewing certain circumstances through God’s eyes.  He told a story about a husband who after a hard day’s work would come home and open his garage door to find toys scattered all over the ground, blocking his entry.  He would then have to get out of his car, move the toys, get back in his car and pull into the garage.  All of the toys were in the garage, of course, because the wife grew tired of picking them up off of the floor all day, and so to minimize an inside mess she moved the kids and their toys outside to the garage.  After a few days of having to get out of his car and move toys in order to pull into the garage, the husband really tore into his wife.  This is the part of the story where I leaned over and whispered to my husband, “If you did that, I would put even more toys out in the garage…” to which he responded, “I know you would.”  After weeks of the same routine and the husband and wife bickering, the husband pulls up to the garage all ready to be upset but then gets a wake up call from God who reminds him that some of his friends would love to be able to move toys out of the way to get inside of their garage.  Some of his friends can’t have kids.  The moral of the story was to not sweat the small stuff and for the husband to learn a lesson in humility and gratitude.  I took it another way.  When you don’t want to constantly pick up your kids’ toys just put them in the garage and make your husband do it, because God will make him feel guilty if he doesn’t. 

No, I’m kidding. 

I think the moral of the story is respect.  Now, shut my mouth Gloria Steinem, but I sort of sympathize with the husband of the story.  Not that he should fight with his wife about stupid toys, but, come on.  You can only have the same fight for so long before your stand off ends up like Waco.  I joke about it with my husband but I do believe in a healthy respect when it comes to our jobs.  I know my husband is tired when he gets home from work and he knows I’m physically and emotionally drained.  I could say I’m more tired, but it’s really subjective so I will just respect the fact that we’re both tired.  When he comes home he is clocking out of one job and into another.  When he comes home I am relieved to have help but I don’t get to clock out of my job just yet either.  It’s both of our jobs to keep our home running smoothly, all day, all night.  He knows that I’ve been home alone all day with a two year old who barely speaks and who at times will only communicate with me by screaming.  He may not be perfect but my husband has always respected the work of a full time mom.  I have his mother and sisters to thank for that.  In return I have to respect the demands of his workload.  The feminist in me has to accept the fact that while I never signed on to be a cook or a housekeeper when I decided to be a full time mom here I am, cooking and cleaning in the most stereotypical way.  I realize that any person living in any house would have to cook and clean for themselves.  I’m not doing it because it’s my job.  I’m doing it because it’s life.  My husband and I are learning to navigate our roles and partner in this business of life together and unless we respect one another, our business will fail.   

As for my friend’s joke, I’d like to think that if they did send a woman to the moon, she’d take one look around and say “You guys need to pick up after your damn selves.”