*just* a housewife

(bare with me, it's a long one.)

A while backed I dated an alright guy. I choose someone else over him. This resulted in him trying to compensate for the loss. This compensation included him telling me he knew that the new guy was going to hurt me (funny, it never resulted in any further certainties when I asked how). It also included his telling everyone he knew that I just wanted to be a housewife. He said it with such disdain, like it pained him physically to utter the words. I shouldn't be surprised. This is all coming from the guy who admitted he talked down to me because I hadn't gone to college. (Where has that fancy math degree taken you?)

What's so terrible about wanting to be someone's mom? What's so terrible about wanting to be the one to cook and clean? If this were 50 years ago I'd be praised for wanting this. I could never be "just a housewife" sitting on my ass eating chocolates or something similar. Why can't a housewife be intelligent and worthy of the same intellectual allowances of someone who paid for a degree just so they can get a job not using it?

The only time I've ever been sure I was doing the right thing in life was when I was keeping house for Julie and Clay and doing things like teaching Patrick to write his name, or showing James the finer points of masterpieces like Peewee's Big Adventure? (James' aversion of Large Marge notwithstanding)

I like being responsible for making someone into a great individual. One could argue I should've been a teacher then. I don't think I could deal with putting so much effort into so many folks and seeing them turn their lives into shit and become boring and dull. I'm better with small groups.


As long as I'm ranting, can I mention how completely ridiculous it is to post a rambling livejournal entry about how perfect everything is going to be when you have kids, only to follow it with an entry talking about how you love having the freedom to just pick up and leave whenever? Kids change EVERYTHING and even the most stable relationships get chewed up, spit out and stepped on. Get ready for the ride of your life sweetheart, and don't forget to throw any and all expectations out the goddamn window. When you're up at 1:30 am for the fourth night in a row and your kid is doing everything they can to just stay up and hang out, you get time to think and find out what kind of parent (and person) you are. When you're losing 10 pounds because you can't keep anything down but water in the first few months of pregnancy, you find out just how fast all your ideas of "only eating healthy" go flying out the window you roll down at the McDonalds drive thru.

*semi-unrelated note: never having had a fight in your entire relationship doesn't mean you're meant for each other, it just means you're with someone who never cares about anything enough to argue about it. Trust me, I've been there and walked all over that trying to get some kind of reaction. I'd much rather have an argumentative HONEST guy anyday.*


College doesn't make you a better person. Having kids is something you can create an outline of some very open guidelines for at best. If your life is full of concrete values and unwavering opinions on How It's Going To Be, then do yourself and your future offspring a favor. Don't have any. The lack of control will destroy you and the desperate attempts to regain it will destroy them.

For example, some things I was NEVER GOING TO LET MY KID DO:

1. Watch lots of tv
When you're on the 2nd straight hour of running around after a screaming baby, you'll welcome an hour of them sitting, laughing, and being enthralled and overjoyed at Yo Gabba Gabba or Sesame Street or The Backyardigans. You might even resign yourself to the fact that they like their TV friends better than you at the moment.

2. need to be rocked to sleep

Babies cry, and you never realize how animalistic and instinct driven motherhood is until you find a friend's baby crying cute and tear your hair out when your kid barely even whimpers, let alone flat-out balls-to-the-wall WAILS when you try to teach them to fall asleep on their own.

3. You know what, I'm sure I had a list years and years ago. I'm sure it had tons upon tons of rules and restrictions on it, but my regulations have relaxed and changed so much since I had him that right now my only rule is I won't let my kid be forced to be anything he doesn't want to be. I know this sounds silly to most of you, but I can safely attest to the fact that babies probably know better about How It's Going To Be and What They Want more than college graduates or wise aged folks do.

Put that in your pedantic pipe and smoke it. I wil be a housewife, and I will revel in the fact that I will watch my children grow and stil be able to carve out time to expand my mind, should I choose to.

And the guy I chose, the one who was accused of never questioning me or making me strive for greatness, he pushes me everyday to finish medical transcription school. We speak of the future and returns on investments and what that could mean in a few years. It could mean I could follow the other path I felt comfortable on and start a business.

Moral, if you must have one,

You don't know anything, so stop pretending we had some intense connection when you closed your mind off to any option besides COLLEGE!! And the great $30K waste.


Oh, and you, quit thinking things will go as planned and start taking out insurance policies on your relationship if you really are planning on procreating. I've known stronger couples barely make it through the first year.



For everyone else, we're in talks and planning out our closing date details. Bring on the townhome and rooming with the Kellys. :)

Now someone come hang out with my wide awake son so I can sleep.

I promise I will crochet again and post about it soon. I made some purses and have a newfound love of adding buttons to things. All in due time they will be posted here.