Raising humans is terribly inefficient work.
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| "I don't need to do alone time, I'm not even tired!" Mmmmkay. |
I don't mind hard work, I really don't. My bosses have generally loved me as a worker, in every job I've had. I was a good student. I am a focused task-doer. But when I work hard I want it to result in... something.
Being a housewife/SAHM/homemaker/whatever term you like for it: I have never worked harder in my life, nor felt less successful at achieving the end I'm working towards.
Behavior/teaching things with the kids get reminded and then forgotten and then reminded again. Meals get prepared and then complained about. Messes get cleaned then re-messed. I live in chaos, far more than I ever would have guessed I can tolerate.
It is all just so... inefficient. There is hardly a thing I can do one day, one morning, one hour, that I won't have to immediately repeat within a coming window of time. The same work! Again! And I don't just mean the household stuff but also just the general rearing of what I hope will be future good citizens. It's like trying to frantically build something while someone else, or a team of someone elses (often the very tiny humans you are trying to raise, themselves), take it apart, working against me. And I just have to keep doing it over and over again, be faster than them and smarter than them to find productivity and progress despite them, even though it's for them, and hope that one day it will be the day that it doesn't come apart.
And keep telling myself that in the meantime, it still matters, and I have to keep trying, even when I feel like I'm getting nowhere. Some days I believe myself. Some days I don't.
Someone told me years ago that being effective is more important than being efficient, but, oh man, I don't know, MY KINGDOM FOR A HAPPY MEDIUM.
7 comments:
Soulmate a once again. Just, yes, this.
This is SO SO true!! You said exactly how I feel most days. The do-er in me is not happy with the results at the end of each day.
You worded this PERFECTLY.
Yes! Exactly. So frustrating.
I totally get it. I totally get every single word you just wrote. The pay off doesn't happen often does it? Your kids have good days and bad days too. You are entitled to all of that. We are all entitled to all of that. My happiness in all that chaos is Henry learning how to talk and really play with us. Katie singing and wanting my cuddles. All the rest ends up just the crappy part of parenting. But I totally get it. I really do.
Well stated.
AMEN. I feel your pain, sista.
This. This was my #1 frustration with last summer when I wasn't working & home with all 3 kids for 5 mos. I don't handle that kind of unproductive insanity well at ALL. It is HARD.
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