Danger Danger!
Following LJ's observations of my behavior lately and a few nagging thoughts of my own, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm sliding a bit into a slump. I do hope not. Thing is, I'm happy to have plenty of time to putter but I'm wondering if I'm getting stressed about my puttering and also if it's having a negative effect on my relationship now that LJ is working. I mean, my days are productive. I haven't spent a whole day watching TV in my pajamas (though I have fantasised about it). I have produced healthy, delicious dinners. I have cleaned and fixed and painted and done laundry and worked on my resume and moved the snow off the front path. But I have this sense of guilt that I haven't actually done anything. Everytime LJ's mum comes by she seems to notice something that I haven't done that I perhaps should have and, while I'm sure she doesn't mean it that way, I feel it's a criticism of how I spend my time. Am I a neurotic housewife?
So, in order to avoid this anxiety leading me into a slumpy slump I am going to...avoid it. If I keep doing what I'm doing (even though part of me is fine with it) I am concerned I'll get caught in the big bad spiral. In order to avoid this, I'm going to give myself writing projects so I feel as though I'm actually doing something for me, something outside of the home if you know what I mean. One blogging writing project and one non-blogging writing project. I have a week to complete both and the deadline for the first two will be...next Wednesday.
Tomorrow I will post the title of my blogging writing project. Any suggestions are, of course, welcome.
BTW: it is interesting that I feel this way about my position as a homemaker. It's certainly true that I feel as though the work I am doing is not valued, that there is an assumption that I couldn't possibly find it 'enough' or that it couldn't be 'enough'. The same part of me feels that it would be just fine if everyone would leave me alone but I also see my behavior changing towards LJ and I don't like what I see. At least if I'm writing I will have an outlet. Plus it's what I keep saying I want to do!
So, in order to avoid this anxiety leading me into a slumpy slump I am going to...avoid it. If I keep doing what I'm doing (even though part of me is fine with it) I am concerned I'll get caught in the big bad spiral. In order to avoid this, I'm going to give myself writing projects so I feel as though I'm actually doing something for me, something outside of the home if you know what I mean. One blogging writing project and one non-blogging writing project. I have a week to complete both and the deadline for the first two will be...next Wednesday.
Tomorrow I will post the title of my blogging writing project. Any suggestions are, of course, welcome.
BTW: it is interesting that I feel this way about my position as a homemaker. It's certainly true that I feel as though the work I am doing is not valued, that there is an assumption that I couldn't possibly find it 'enough' or that it couldn't be 'enough'. The same part of me feels that it would be just fine if everyone would leave me alone but I also see my behavior changing towards LJ and I don't like what I see. At least if I'm writing I will have an outlet. Plus it's what I keep saying I want to do!
4 Comments:
Hi again. Yes, that waged work/domestic work axis can be brutal. I am the 'breadwinner' right now and that sucks too in its own special way... always the policing of domestic work, who does what, who has to manage it (and thus who is really responsible, regardless of what agreements you have).
Props on getting your MA with distinction! - hold on to that, you do have a point in this world, though mothers-in-law sometimes can make that seem remote... (there's definitely something there about women enforcing gender boundaries - juts remember it's *her* identity that's at stake for her in her veiled crits of you)
The 'enough' thing, I think, is certainly a factor of the gendered division of labour and a factor in women's inequality generally - we can never do enough or be enough to be 'right' since we are, by definition, Other to what is right. But on the ground, in your daily life, it's really tough to say, 'oh yes I feel inadequate because of gender regimes compromising my consciousness of my true worth' rather than 'geez I am inadequate'...
hang in there! read feminist blogs! :)
Ok, check out this post from Bitch PhD:
‘My Radical Married Feminist Manifesto‘
Hi Gxx, This is my first time visiting your blog....very impressed with all the earnest studying and embracement of domesticity. You seem a little hard on your self...our life is not only to struggle and achieve but sometimes to sit back and muse. Every hour does not have to be filled. For all your feminist ideals are you a little haunted by guilt?....and that mother sounds like a bitch. Maybe a little venture out into the big bad world every day would ease the stay-at-home anxiety more then burying your head into more writing? And does that spice rack spin?
Hi Bellecoquette,
Sure, there's a lot of guilt going on, and it's more than a little strange because I just read your comment after I posted my latest addition which begins my disection of the guilt!
Yes, the spice rack spins! It is the most fabulous thing ever!
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