The Wife and the Writer's Life

Five hundred years ago today, Martin Luther is supposed to have nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenburg Castle Church, an act which helped catalyse the Reformation. Thinking about Martin and his wife, Kate, I wrote the following piece for Zadok Perspectives No. 134 during a very busy summer!

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So I got an email asking if I could whip up a column on Martin Luther or maybe his wife Kate sometime in the next week, and I’d love to. I’d love to tell you about the time we went to Lutherstadt-Wittenburg and toured the church and their home. I’d love to tell you about how Martin spent the first three hours of every day in his study wrestling with God and praying before he got down to work—but the washing machine is trilling to say that the next load is ready to be hung on the line, a kid has just come into the study needing her mum, and I don’t have the time.

For I am Kate: the household manager. The Luther household was large, overflowing with children and visitors and servants and paying guests. And Kate made sure that the bread was baked and the meals were cooked and the beds were made and the children were taught and the vegetables were harvested and the beer was brewed. I’d love to tell you more about her, but it’s summer holidays, I live near the ocean, and I’ve had a constant stream of guests. In the last four weeks I’ve cooked over 300 dinners, and made breakfasts and lunches too. I’ve washed countless dishes and sheets and towels, swept and mopped the floors, talked to the plumber and other tradies, and paid the bills, even as I’ve spent time with visiting family and friends. But unlike Kate, I don’t have servants: no cook, no laundress, no maid, no farmhand, no gardener. Instead, I have my husband and me, and what I can wheedle, bully and cajole out of the kids. Yet my husband works in Melbourne and is away three days a week; the kids sometimes refuse their chores: much of the work is done by me.

Because it’s summer, I’ve also spent hours with the kids at the beach. And because I am not just a household manager, but also the sole pastor of a new congregation in a smallish city, I keep bumping into parishioners and others who access me in my role, and so, while standing around in my bathing suit, I’ve had conversations about grace and judgement and calling and forgiveness, and Jesus’ teaching on possessions. And then after I’ve listened and maybe spoken a word of hope or comfort or truth, they say to me, “Are you having a nice holiday?” and it’s true I’m in my bathers but I wonder what on earth they think I’m doing as I take what I hear, pray, read the Word, and prepare the next sermon that will shake them out of their complacency, or make them weep with gratitude and relief. For I’m also Martin: called to wrestle with God and preach and write, and proclaim God’s hospitality in word and deed. Unlike him, however, I don’t have a wife or three hours of solitude every day. Instead, I pray on foot as I slip out alone to the shops and plan the next round of meals. I’d tell you more about it, only I don’t have the time.

The Luthers paved the way for churches like ours, which keep an open table and have visitors every week; people who ask “What is prayer?” and “Who is Jesus?” and “Why do you do this weird ritual meal anyway?” even as they eat the bread and drink the wine and proclaim the mystery of our faith. They come, I think, because I am both Martin and Kate: the professional and the home maker: the writer and the cook. They read the sermons and eat the dinners because they are hungry: hungry for a people to eat with, hungry for a people to belong to, hungry for a shared narrative that is bigger and more generous than any other way of life. And this hunger is so great, and the eating is so central, that I’d love to find where Martin said, “If the good Lord sees fit to provide a nice, fat pike and a dry Rhine Riesling, then I see fit to eat and drink,” only it’s getting on to five and there are guests in the house. It’s time to turn on the oven, open a bottle of wine, put out crackers and dips, and cook dinner, so that this evening the people I love—the man I married, the children I birthed, the friends and parishioners and acquaintances I listen to, pray for, and talk, laugh and weep with—may, through the hospitality we provide in the name of Christ, come to the table and be fed.

Jesus promised that, when we follow him, we will find life in abundance; and life is certainly abundant in this wonderful, overflowing, crazy season of summer. In a couple of weeks, the visitors will go home, the kids will be back at school, my husband will be in Melbourne, and the house will be quiet. Then, I will sit in my study in solitude and silence, and then, I will find time to write.

Must I always remember my mother by my failures?

Here we go again: the anniversary of my mother’s death. This year, like every year, it has crept up on me and has been marked not with gentle ceremonies of remembrance, but by my failures.

Friday: I forgot my middle daughter’s athletics carnival. We arrived at school to find athletes buzzing – and my daughter in tight jeans. “Go home,” she said in panicky tears, “go home, and get me some shorts!” I ran to the office and checked when the bus was leaving: three minutes. I asked if they had anything she could wear. They found a pair of bike shorts in her size: brilliant. Eight dollars and two minutes later, my daughter was dressed and ready for the bus. Problem solved; but in the initial forgetting, I felt like a failure as a mother.

Saturday: “I have an itchy bottom,” said someone. “Me too,” said someone else. Worming tablets, eight loads of washing, a whole house cleaned, and five showers later, I was exhausted. And this inability to impress upon my children the importance of washing their hands felt like a reflection of my crappy parenting: yet again, failure.

Sunday: We went for a swim at the pool. Afterwards, my oldest daughter and I decided to stroll home separately from the others. I hadn't brought my bag, just some money in my pocket. I thought we could pop into an op shop and a café, and have a little mother-daughter time. But the bright low sun caught in my eyes, and the whirling sparkles of migraine began. Without my bag, I had no phone to call for help, and none of the pain medication that I usually carry. We staggered home with me on her arm, blind, and I collapsed into bed. So much for op shops, cafés, or mother-daughter time. These things happen; but what a failure.

Monday: We arrived at school. My youngest daughter’s friends were all holding books. Everyone had attained the required reading level, and their teacher had declared a class party. They were bringing in their favourite books and some food to share; we had forgotten. My usually calm daughter looked shocked, then began to weep. I lifted her seven-year-old self into my arms, and crooned and rocked. She wouldn’t come to the library and find another book; she wouldn’t borrow a book from a sister or a friend; she just clung onto me, and wept. The bell rang and I gently lowered her down. I left her in line, a fat tear rolling down her cheek. Fat tears rolled down mine, too. Three hugs from three friends later, and I’m still tear-y.

Yesterday a friend sent me a text: If only your mum could see what an amazing person you are. Weird, I thought. Almost everything I ever did was wrong, according to my mother. Just imagine how she would have ripped into me these last few days, as I failed and failed and failed.
And then I realised my friend had sent the text because it was the anniversary of her death: yet another thing that I had forgotten.

It’s been fifteen years since she died; and fifteen years of me trying to learn that I’m a good enough parent, and a good enough person, for this world. But at this time of year, every year, I forget these lessons along with everything else. All I do is fail, and notice and remember my failures.

Will there ever come a time when I mark this anniversary with the good things about our relationship, the things we held in common? The love of stories? The hours spent in galleries? The relishing of small jokes? When will I remember our joint passion for nooks and crannies and creaky old houses? For serious conversations held with small children? When will I rest in the pleasure we shared sucking the marrow out of lamb chops, and out of life?

Response: The Tortoise and the Hare

The Tortoise and the Hare, first published in 1956, charts the slow deterioration of a marriage through the eyes of the wife, Imogen. Imogen is young, beautiful, and submissive to her much older husband, Evelyn. In the early days of their marriage, Evelyn found her somewhat helpless charm endearing. But fifteen years on, as his career reaches its peak, his needs have changed: he wants to be looked after. The more she tries to please him by effacing herself, the less regard he has for her. And the less regard he has for her, the more her confidence collapses. Gradually, his affections transfer to their neighbour, the frumpish, dowdy, overbearing Blanche Silcox, whose ‘figure with its bloated waist’ was held up by the ‘slender forelegs that unexpectedly support a bull’. Miss Silcox is effective, opinionated, good at huntin’ and fishin’, and at organising his life and everyone else’s.

For all that things have changed in sixty years, many elements of the story continue to ring true. My own husband is eight years older than me and has a well-established career which, like Evelyn’s, is in the law. I am a late bloomer, slow to understand myself, the sort of woman who has grown up enormously because of my loving husband’s care. In the early years of our relationship, I was overwhelmed by grief and struggled with everyday life. Normal activities like driving, meeting strangers, shopping, and working full time felt beyond me and, like Imogen, I was happy to spend many hours of the week doing very little. Because my husband has been patient, gentle and kind, there are many ways that he has husbanded me into being who I am today. But when I think what life could have been like had my husband been as politely, overbearingly selfish as Evelyn, then, like Imogen, I may very well have faded into invisibility.

There are also elements of Blanche in me. Like her, I can be very effective. These days I run a pretty tight ship, and the house is a reasonably neat, welcoming place. My husband comes home to clean socks in the dresser and hot dinner on the table. Bar the normal irritations of children, he has a comfortable home life. But The Tortoise and the Hare made me think, again, about how much many women, including me, still work so hard to meet the needs of their menfolk. Imogen tries and fails; Blanche tries and succeeds; I try and sometimes fail and sometimes succeed. My husband does not demand this of me; he never makes judgements if the house is grubby or I’m too wrecked to cook; and he does a fair bit of the workload. But I certainly do more than I need to make the house a home, whether cooking from scratch or folding his hankies before putting them away. Unlike Evelyn, my husband is respectful and committed to finding ways to share our lives; even so, the book helped me see some of the power dynamics that we unwittingly live out.

The book also recalled the marriage, and divorce, of several of my friends. Imogen is always polite and careful never to make a scene, even when her husband’s relationship with Blanche Silcox slides into a humiliatingly public, domestic, daily affair. And in one dreadful scene, Evelyn kindly remonstrates with Imogen because she has not tried hard enough to like Blanche.

It may seem incredible that a man could rebuke his wife for not making a better attempt to appreciate his mistress, but again and again I have heard similar stories. The man who left one friend and their newborn child because, since the birth of the baby, my friend had ‘selfishly’ failed to attend to his needs and he felt pushed into the arms of his (previously undeclared) lover. The man whose wife’s ‘preoccupation’ with their young children and her own ill-health ‘drove’ him to nightly consumption of internet porn, and to demanding the more brutalised sexual expression that had become his new norm. The man who left a marriage because his wife’s breast cancer was making his life too difficult. And so on.

These did not start out as abusive relationships. It was only after a long and gradual shift in the terms of each relationship that conversations in which the mostly victim was blamed for the actions of and abandonment by the mostly selfish were possible. Again, this is seen in the book. Imogen takes a long time to recognise what is happening. When she does begin to wonder, and tentatively frames a question, her usually polite husband explodes at her impertinence and lack of consideration for his privacy, and shuts down the conversation. Understanding that he will be considerate, polite, and gentle as long as she never broaches the subject, she leaves it until what was previously unthinkable has become so normal, so reasonable, so much a part of everyday life, that it cannot be challenged. And this, too, I hear from friends. By the time they realise what is happening, it is too late for questions; tentative forays are met with aggression, counteraccusations or blank denial.

The Tortoise and the Hare is an acute look at the power relations between many men and women, or income earners versus homemakers, and it raises interesting questions. Who is the hare, and who is the tortoise? Who wins, and what is the prize? Is the winner the woman who fully shapes herself to the man’s needs; and the rich, powerful, handsome man the trophy? Or is the winner the one who is cast aside and left with nothing but, perhaps, the chance to rebuild a life on new terms?

Questions are also raised about love, power, and work. What boundaries should be kept sacrosanct in a relationship, and how can one keep them or ask another to keep them? How much should one shape oneself or the household to meet the other’s needs? Evelyn works, while Imogen’s role is to be decorative and provide a sanctuary for him. How, then, does ‘working’ versus ‘homemaking’ affect the power relationship? Some things have changed since the book was written; now, both partners often work in demanding jobs. In thinking about Evelyn’s need to be cared for, I found myself wondering how we can find restoration and comfort at home when both partners are exhausted and the kids are ratty and we don’t have housekeepers or cooks.

These are all good questions, with no neat or universal answers. Instead, they need to be negotiated time and again. And while The Tortoise and the Hare does not offer solutions, it certainly describes aspects of many modern domestic relationships, raises questions, and holds clues to possible answers – and provides some beautiful, intelligent, incisive, and sometimes hilariously bitchy, reading along the way.

No suitable help makes it hard to be a minister's wife or even, for that matter, a minister

After all these years of struggling with work and not-work, I’m still struggling. I have days where I take the kids to school, drink a slow coffee, have a slow chat, then wander home and hang out the washing. I work for a few hours before it’s time to pick up the kids and leap on the after school treadmill. On such days I feel a bit guilty for not working as hard as my husband. But, said a friend, perhaps you’re not seeming to work as hard as your husband – and that’s a different thing.

There’s no question that my husband works hard, jolly hard. His hours are packed. Mine aren’t. At least, they’re not packed with ‘work’ things. I’m certainly doing the requisite hours and more of working and studying, but I also do a whole lot of other things, invisible things, that I somehow think don’t take any time. But when I reflect on them, they are actually significant parts of the day.

Take the other day. I razzed three kids up and took them to school, despite their usual shenanigans which required me to leave the room several times and breathe slowly and carefully so as to avoid losing my temper. Then I had a long pastoral conversation. I went home and worked on my thesis for a couple of hours. I ate lunch standing up, then ran out of the house to meet someone and do a couple more hours pastoral work and study. From there, I went straight to school and picked up the kids. One of them did a runner, so I chased her through the schoolyard and go to be That Mother who yelled. We squeaked home in time for piano lessons. I shunted all three through their lessons; brought in, sorted and folded three loads of washing; filled in school forms; washed the vegetable crisper; unpacked the weekly veggie box; prepared a healthy balanced meal; ate with my kids; bathed and de-loused them; supervised readers and homework; played a few rounds of racing demon; did the dishes with my six-year-old; got the kids to put their clean clothes away and their dirty clothes in the wash (which takes much more effort than seems reasonable); ushered them into bed; then sat down, at half past eight, with a cup of tea.

But my husband got home from work after nine. So I felt like I hadn’t worked as hard as him.

There are so many tasks that feel like not-work and like they should take no time. They appear on no balance sheet, and I expect them to fit into the cracks of the day. Filling in school forms. Paying bills. Planning and cooking meals. Buying groceries. Washing dishes. Sweeping floors. Mending. Any form of housework. Buying birthday presents. Most of the emotional work. And yet when you have three primary school aged children, washing, cleaning, admin, mediation, and food preparation take an hour or two every day.

The frustrating thing is that my consciousness is well and truly raised. I’ve read Marilyn Waring’s books. I’ve thought and written about the importance of homemaking, and despite my previous conclusions, I really do think that it’s work – in my head. But my gut still doesn’t really recognise it as work, or that it takes real time.

Last week my father, the historian, told me about a woman who came out from England in the nineteenth century. She complained loudly that there was no suitable help in the colonies, which made it impossible for her to perform her duties as a minister’s wife. It made me laugh, and then rock back on my heels. Because I am not the minister’s wife. I am, in fact, the minister. I am also doing postgraduate study. And I am the cook, the laundress, the mostly cleaner, and the gardener for a family of five.

I know all about feminist consciousness raising and The Wife Drought, and they’re all well and good. But it took a word from the nineteenth century for me to hear, quite clearly, that these other things are work, too. That, and talking with friends, and blogging about it time and time again. I am writing about it now as part of my remedial learning process. But I am such a slow learner. By the time I really recognise it as work, my kids will have all grown up.

A hot shower takes me right back to childhood

 

I love a hot shower; my husband likes it cool. Sometimes in the morning rush, my husband jumps in as I'm getting out. And every time he yelps, steps back, and reaches for the cold. 'How can you have it so hot?' he asks, looking at my bright pink skin.

Let me tell you, my dear. When I was a girl, we had an outdoor laundry; as well as the washing machine, it housed an ancient hot water system. My father would get up at six to light the boiler, and I, who had been mooching around since five, would often go with him and watch.

A brick bunker ran down the side of the laundry, full of hard black coal humped in hessian sacks from a Bedford truck. Mr Wright, the coalman, had twinkling eyes, a crinkly face, a snow white beard, and a big smile for me. Each morning, dad would fill the coal bucket from the bunker and I'd think of Mr Wright; then we'd go into the laundry.

There my father would kneel in front of the boiler, and open the metal door. His large brown hands would carefully lay the fire: first twists of paper, then firelighters, then a careful pile of coal briquettes. When it was built, he would strike a match, reach in, and gingerly touch it in several places. Very gently, cold breath wreathing, he would blow at the fire. Tentative flames would lick up once, twice, then, becoming more sure of themselves, take hold. We'd sit quietly and watch until we were sure the briquettes had caught. Then he'd close and latch the boiler door.

Hands black with cold dust, he'd run the water through a skinny folding spigot into the concrete laundry trough. The boiler was still heating up; the water was always freezing. My father would rinse his hands, then roll the yellow soap around and around. He'd rub his hands one inside the other, until his nails were clean and the ridges in his skin were clear; he'd send lather up to his elbows. Finally, he'd sluice his arms, and dry them on an old ragged towel.

More than anything, my father hated a cool shower. For all the care that he took, he was so anxious to ensure that his shower was hot that he'd sometimes overload the boiler. Twenty minutes later, it would boil over, rattling and shaking to waken the dead, shooting steam and scalding hot water all over the laundry roof, ready to take off like a rocket.

'Jooo-oooohn!' my mother would scream, a regular morning wail, 'you've done it again!'

On those days, the water was so hot that steam bumped through the pipes. Instead of warm water, we'd get jets of icy water interspersed with gusts of scalding steam. Impossible to wash in, we'd wait anxiously watching the clock, sniping at each other, until everything had cooled down a bit; then we'd rush through our showers and race out the door.

Whenever I remember this, my face cracks into a loopy grin – and there is my answer to my husband: a hot shower takes me right back to childhood.

A honeymoon period

A little while ago, my husband damaged his back. This has meant a stay in hospital, followed by therapy and rest. After six weeks, he's finally returned to work full time, but he's still exhausted; this healing business takes time.

You'd think that I've been upset, anxious and afraid – not to mention exhausted, frustrated, and annoyed. But to my surprise, I wasn't, not at all. Cool, calm and collected more accurately described my state of mind. 'Right,' I thought, 'honeymoon's over. Time to get to work.' So I ran the household. We usually split the childcare, but I took on his kindergarten and school runs, and the hanging round the park between pickups. He usually cooks one night a week, but that couldn't happen, so I've done that too; and he usually does the grocery shopping, but not this month. The cleaning, washing and everything else are my responsibility anyway; and to cap things off the kids first got a virus, then threadworms, which meant washing extra linen and scrubbing the house.

On top of that I read a bunch of books and articles and wrote almost 5,000 words for university, and penned a couple of columns, and drafted and recorded half a dozen short pieces for a new project. So you could say I've been busy.

And it all felt fine.

Our relationship kicked off fifteen years ago, during a time of tumult. He was getting divorced, my mother was dying, we fell out with first one church then another, I had an abusive employer, he stepped up to a major new role at work, and so on. The first couple of years we were together were really, really hard. Things were just settling down when we had a couple more significant deaths, and our first baby, which really knocked us around; but the last seven years have been a breeze!

And at some level, I've been waiting all this time for the next thing to happen, because living on an even keel can't be normal. Now that something has happened – thankfully nothing too major – I realise I've experienced the last half decade as a honeymoon period.

So instead of being upset, all I can think is, what a lovely thing to realise about one's relationship!

Washing the dishes by hand

 

When my second daughter was almost a year old, we bought a dishwasher. I had chronic eczema on my hands, related to the many forms of washing that come with raising small children; using the dishwasher made a huge difference to my skin. I was pathetically grateful to be able to shove the baby bottles in and have them washed while I got on with other tasks. For five or six years, I sang its praises.

Now my kids are older, and we have moved to a house with a dodgy dishwasher. The machine fits relatively few dishes; then thunders away for an hour or so only to render the dishes less than half clean. We soon decided we had to replace it with an efficient, effective model. However, we haven’t had much spare cash this year; so until we can afford it, we have been washing up by hand.

To my surprise, we have discovered that it’s no big deal. Now we’re well past the stage of three little kids eating five meals a day, and the dreaded baby bottles, the washing up is no longer onerous. I’m beginning to realise that I don’t want to replace the dishwasher; instead, I just want to rip the faulty one out.

When we had the dishwasher, I used to spend a long time loading it, arranging and rearranging to fit the maximum in. It was like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Then I washed whatever didn’t fit. Now, I spend no time loading the dishwasher. The time I once used to load it is now spent just washing up. The things that went in the machine – cups, plates, bowls, cutlery – are quickly washed in the sink. The things that didn’t go in the machine – plastics, saucepans, knives, bread boards – I always washed by hand anyway. So rather than spend ten minutes loading the machine, then doing the leftover washing up, I now spend fifteen minutes doing the washing up, full stop. If anything, it’s quicker.

Our former machine was relatively quiet. Even so, you could hear it in the background for the hour or more it took to run through the cycles. Every evening was punctuated by swishes, gentle whirrs, and gurgles from the sink. Now, once the dishes are washed, the house is silent: no humming, no machine noise, no gurgles. I am enjoying the quiet.

We don’t have a dishes roster. Some nights, my husband and I do them after the kids are in bed. It’s not a bad thing, because of instead of going straight to our separate books or screens, we have a chat over sink and tea towels. It grounds us, and helps me feel like we are sharing the tasks of homemaking in a small, but not unimportant, way.

Other nights, we do them with the kids. We put on dance music and the kids wiggle their bums around as they dry. Sometimes, my nine-year-old washes. There are evenings when everyone grizzles about having to contribute, but they always step up in the end; ultimately, they can’t resist the music and the chance to dance with mum and dad in the kitchen!

Studies have shown that kids who have chores around the house tend to have good outcomes; it really is character-building. I reckon this makes sense: there’s nothing more demoralising than feeling useless. Yet we live in an age of labour-saving devices, compounded by a culture of perfection; and this seems to mean that many kids make no practical contribution to their households. At the extreme are the kids I know (aged 6, 7, even 8) who have looked at me blankly when I put out bread, butter and fixings; they have never been entrusted to make their own sandwich and don’t know how to start, let alone hold a knife.

My partner and I are too disorganised to assign formal chores to our kids. Occasionally, in a burst of good intentions, we give them specific tasks, but we rarely enforce them (and to those of you who have functioning rosters, I salute you!). However, the dishes have become something that the kids can do. It’s hardly the level of responsibility many children have, but it makes them feel useful, and communicates that they are contributors to family life.

The kids also set the table. With that job comes a privilege: to choose which plates we will eat from. I inherited a pile of old English crockery from various family members. The pile is constantly added to by my slight crockery addiction; I am forever picking up plates at op shops. But when we had the dishwasher, we rarely used the old stuff. It didn’t stack well in the machine; and I couldn’t bear to have the hand-painted designs worn off by the heat and powerful soaps. The crockery became a collection. However, since we began washing up by hand, we eat in vintage style. My kids prefer plates ringed with roses, or marigolds, or mixed bouquets - everything tastes better on a pretty plate!

The plates get me telling stories: about grandmothers, and families, and other houses I have known. Later, as we wash up, I keep remembering: the extended family and the meals we have shared; the view out the kitchen window of my childhood home; the sight of my father washing up every night; different group houses and their grotty kitchens; church kitchens and tea towel fights. And here am I, far down the great current of time yet still surrounded by a host of loved ones as I run water, squeeze soap, swish plates and scrub pans as has been done for time immemorial.

It may not be for everyone. But for me at this life stage, for the quiet, the ease, the opportunity for contemplation, the conversations I have with partner and kids, the dancing round the kitchen, the pretty plates, and the richness of the memories: well, I have fallen in love with washing the dishes by hand.

Work, Study, Housework, Homemaking: Some definitions

 

In my last post, I wrote about work-life balance. I've spent my whole adult life wondering about the nature of work; yet in that post I used the word without definition or clarification. Now I'd like to unpack it.

The day I wrote that post, I used the word to mean 'activity which is not directly related to managing children or the household'; that's what I always mean when I say 'work'. My husband works: he goes out of the house and does stuff which is not related to spending time with children, cleaning the house, washing clothes, or buying, preparing and serving food. Certainly the money he earns contributes mightily to the upkeep of the household, but when he is 'at work', he is not engaged in a hands-on way.

When I say that I 'work', I mean that I am studying or writing. I don't differentiate, when I speak, between all the aspects of 'studying' and 'writing', such as reading, mining bibliographies, meeting with supervisors or other students, attending seminars, collecting library books, sighing over crappy drafts, or gazing out the window wondering what the hell I'm trying to do. Nobody needs to know precisely what I do in those hours, just as nobody outside accounts needs to know when my husband meets with a client, drafts a document, ducks out for sushi, or gazes out the window wondering what the hell he's trying to do, too. Like him, I just say 'work'. It's easier that way.

So for me, 'work' is industrious activity outside the orbit of the household. Because I study, it's not financially remunerative; maybe one day it will be.

Why do these words matter? Quite simply, because language is powerful. I have found that if I say 'it's my study time', someone will always suggest meeting for coffee or doing an errand; and when my study times are measured in three hour blocks, this is disastrous. On the other hand, when I say 'it's my work day', nobody asks anything of me. We take 'work' much more seriously than 'study', even if the person using the word 'work' really, secretly, means 'study'.

It's magic! And it's crazy. Meanwhile, an old friend of mine recently worked out how much time she has spent breastfeeding her very young baby; it was many more hours than full time employment, and didn't take into account the time she has spent changing nappies, washing, or caring for her two-year-old. Yet her activities don't fall into our economic or political models of work, despite being physically and emotionally demanding, very time consuming, and of enormous benefit to society. Why do so few of us describe caring for young children as 'work'?

I cannot count the times I wanted to punch someone when they asked me, the mother of three pre-schoolers, when I was going back to work. If, as regularly happened, they went on to say 'it's such a privilege to be able to stay home', I'd have to sit on my fist. Caring for three young children always felt like work enough for me, especially as I often also cared for an extra child or two. If, however, I had been employed as a childcare worker – and put my own kids in paid care to do it – everyone would have given me a pat on the back for re-entering 'the workforce'.

Many mothers I know privately describe their paid work as 'time off'. When they're 'at work' they can concentrate with no interruption; they can grab a coffee and have a few minutes' peaceful contemplation; they can use their minds and training and see the fruits of their labour; they earn money and status because they are 'employed'; and they can pee alone. Once they collect the kids, they're feel like they're on a hamster wheel of taxiing, cooking dinner, listening to readers, washing dishes, bathing kids, tucking them into bed, putting on a load of washing, sweeping the floor, hanging the washing out, and preparing lunches for the next day.

I used to think these friends of mine were being funny when they described their jobs as 'time off', but now I have more time for 'work', that is, study and writing, I see how right they are. It is so affirming to do things which use a bigger skill set; I am beginning to feel like a fully-fledged adult. Study and writing and meetings and seminars do feel like time off (not to mention that blissfully empty time, the commute); even so, I jealously protect the time with the powerful word, 'work', to describe it all.

So what are the activities I rarely describe as work? Unlike my old friend, I'm no longer breastfeeding or changing nappies, thank goodness, but there's still the cooking (don't run in the kitchen, I'm using the big knife), cleaning (I only mopped yesterday, just look at this floor!), laundry (that's two outfits for the day young lady I don't care if it's dirty you're wearing it again tomorrow), washing up (how many cups did you use today???), taking children to and from kinder (where's your lunchbox?) and school (where's your helmet?) and piano lessons (didn't you practice???), braiding hair (I asked you to brush it), working in the school canteen (no you can't have a cupcake just because I'm here), reading with my kids (use a bookmark, not my shopping list/your shoe/a used tissue for god's sake!) and school kids, organising playdates (no you can't watch YouTube when you have a friend over), telling my kids to sit up straight and chew their food properly and put your knees down at once!, shopping for food and shoes and birthday presents, organising church suppers, pruning the roses, telling my kids to use a tissue and put it in the bin!, changing the sheets, overseeing tooth brushing, scrubbing muddy handprints off the walls, combing out nits (sit still!), calling and waiting for tradies, wiping down the benches, taking kids to the doctor and dentist and hairdresser, planting, weeding and watering veggies, reminding kids to put your damn clothes in the wash/away/does this floor look like a laundry basket?, managing multiple food allergies and intolerances (is that really worth eczema and stomach cramps?), feeding the school chooks and guinea pigs (don't squeeze the poor creature!), doing the family paperwork (when did your teacher give you this form?), fixing things (exactly HOW did you break it?), paying bills (do you think we're made of money?), and a thousand other activities.

Some want to describe all this as 'work' – and there are times when I do, too – yet I am largely reluctant to use that word. It's an uphill battle to reframe language. Most people use 'work' to mean 'job' or 'employment'; it's not automatic to use it for household duties. In any case, all these activities are about our primary relationships, and I don't want to reduce the enormous richness and complexity of running a household and caring for children to a set of economic activities, which is what 'work' usually suggests; family life is so much greater than that. Finally, paid work is not 'time off' or a pleasure for many people; it's the job they do so they can afford a roof over their heads and kids under the roof. To describe maintaining that home and caring for children as 'work' when those activities are experienced as a great privilege and a pleasure is, to many people, bizarre.

So I feel the need for another word. 'Housework' doesn't begin to cut it; to me, the word evokes a low heeled woman wearing a frilly apron and carrying a feather duster, and it completely overlooks all the relational aspects of caring for children and maintaining other household relationships. 'Housekeeping', too, doesn't quite fit because, like 'housework', the word is focussed on the physical structure of the house and doesn't provide for the people within it. If you employ a housekeeper, you also need a nanny; housekeepers don't care for children or anyone else.

Another possibility is the word 'homemaking'. It's a word that largely connotes women's work because of a social history in which women have spent the last however long as the primary workers in the home and carers of the people in it; in fact, some dictionaries go so far as to define it as a role some women (not men) adopt. And yet, on reflection, homemaking is not a verb which is intrinsically gendered: every man, woman and child engages in homemaking in some form or another.

Just think of the child who carefully places a pretty snail shell on a shelf; the man who takes out the garbage; the woman who sweeps the floor; the kids who build a cubby; and the baby who by her cries draws the household near. They are all homemakers, building the place where they live and shaping the relationships they have with the other people there.

So the home includes the place, and the objects and people within it; the members of the household co-create and maintain the place they call home through physical labour and relational work; and I can call this activity 'homemaking'.

I've found a word I can work with. I will continue to call any industrious activity outside the house 'work'; and all the things I do in and for the household I will call 'homemaking', instead.

Re the picture: Query: Are the dishes work? Answer: Not for me. They're homemaking. And I must admit, I rather enjoy splashing round in the sink! But as for scrubbing the loo... blech.

A dream: My husband's shirts

 

I dreamed I shoved my husband’s shirts into the washing machine, like usual, and turned on the machine, like usual, but when I went to hang them out, the machine had torn them to ribbons.

‘Look!’ I said to my youngest daughter, ‘look!’ as wide strips of white and blue cotton tumbled out of the washing machine and floated around; and as we watched the ribbons dance, we laughed and laughed and laughed.

I have been a stay-at-home mum for the best part of a decade. I’ve studied a bit and volunteered a bit and gone mad a bit – all the usual things stay-at-home mums do; but for the most part, I’ve drifted round the house sweeping and picking things up and reading stories to kids.

I didn’t give up a ‘real’ job to do this. Before we had kids, I worked part time at boring jobs. I never found a job I much liked, and never managed to work full time without falling to pieces. All of this is to say that, over the course of almost fifteen years in relationship with my husband, I have, very fairly, done the bulk of the housework.

This year, however, I am beginning to study more intensively, and so we are renegotiating the chores. The outcomes of our negotiations will no doubt be fluid, but I wonder about this dream. What does it mean? Is it time for him to downshift? Am I feeling like a doormat, and was the dream my latent aggression coming out? Is it a sign of the delight I have in the changes ahead? Or was it, quite simply, a message to him that it’s time to start washing his own shirts?!

Under a Rock

 

Recently I was told I live under a rock. Here's a bit of doggerel in response.

***

Yes, it’s true. I live under a rock.
Shrink down to my size and join me for a while.
You might find old friends, long stories,
family secrets come to light,
A baby blowing bubbles, a crooked smile.
Neighbours reconciled, gifts given and received.
Quietly reading, a little child.
A kid on a bike, a kid up a tree.
The satisfaction of a pile of washing,
scented by the afternoon.
A toddler in a puddle, sloshing.

Under a leaf, small eggs hang.
The grapevine is now speckled red.
Mornings are crisp, autumn’s in the air.
‘The moon, the moon!’ my daughters said.
We came home late as it hung low
And dazzled us with its golden glow.

These are the things of everyday living:
kitchens and gardens and women and kids.
A life which is rich and generous and giving
– I wouldn’t trade any of it for quids!

A Spider, A Gift

 

I never thought of myself as a wise woman until a spider came to live above my kitchen sink... I chat with her as we do our housework: me at the dishes, Arachne at her loom. As water splashes into the sink, I contemplate webs and weaving, fear and friendship, and whatever else her presence evokes.

***

You can read more of my reflection on a friendly spider in Barefoot Magazine's Summer 2011 issue. This is a bittersweet announcement since it is, very sadly, the last issue of Barefoot.

You can find Barefoot Magazine at all good newsagents, or order your copy here.

From Heavy Heart to a Sense of Hope

What follows is a reflection presented to the South Yarra Community Baptist Church on 3 July 2011. Not quite the usual post, but some of you may find it interesting. The text referred to is Matthew 11:25-30, which goes like this:

Jesus broke into prayer, saying: "Father, Lord of earth and sky, thank you for keeping the religious experts and the sophisticated intellectuals in the dark about these matters, while at the same time making them as plain as day to the average toddler. But of course, Father, such reckless generosity is typical of the way you like to do things!"

Then, turning to the crowd again, Jesus said: "My Father has put the whole show in my hands, and it all hangs on the strength of our relationship. No one really knows what makes the Son tick except the Father, and no one really knows what makes the Father tick except the Son. Anyone else can only know if the Son chooses to let them in on it. If you are worn out and overloaded, come to me, and I will let you put your feet up. Come and work for me, and take a leaf out of my book. I am gentle on people, and down-to-earth; and with me your whole being will be able to relax. The job I will give you is piece of cake. The load I will ask you to bear is a feather-weight."

(Australian paraphrase © Nathan Nettleton, laughingbird.net).

***

Tonight's gospel passage holds a somewhat hideous fascination for me. I've always been told that I'm pretty smart, and I've studied theology. Yet in the reading from Matthew, Jesus says that God has hidden many things from the intelligent and wise, and instead revealed them to children. It's a reminder that cleverness is not the be-all and end-all, and that God's wisdom may often look foolish to our minds – but of course, it makes me very nervous about preaching!

So rather than engage in a big theological exposition, unravelling the text using historical, socio-political, linguistic and liberation-theological tools, I will instead talk a bit about my own journey as a member of this church, and how I think it relates to this passage.

Here I should add that I see church participation as the primary expression of faith. I have been influenced by Elizabeth O'Connor, who argues that the first work of the Christian is to participate in the formation of the church; in fact, she describes it as the only task. "In it," she writes, "we can find ultimate meaning. We are not looking for that thing which may happen next week, next month, or next year. We believe ourselves to be engaged this very moment in that which is the hope of the world... because [Christ] is how we can learn to live in a new way." (Elizabeth O'Connor, The Only Task).

Yet like Jesus' words, O'Connor's claim too has a fairly awful fascination to me. I hate joining things, I hate being part of groups, and at some slightly pathetic level I have to admit that I think I'm a little too good to be linked with a bunch of strangers in a Christian community; it's not very cool, after all. I've been told too many times how fantastically clever and gifted I am, and there seems to be little use for that in the church. So there's a voice that tells me that I'm wasted here; I should be out doing amazing things with important people somewhere else, always somewhere else. In a coffee house in New York, at a conference in London: somewhere important, I could be doing something important and feeling good. At least, that's the myth.

Yet I also know that turning up to church here week after week, month after month, year after year, is the primary discipline that has helped me grow and mature, and which has enabled me to articulate what my gifts are. So what do I do with that?

Well, going back to tonight's text, after putting Miss Clever-pants back in her place, Jesus invites her to link up with him; and he says that his yoke is easy. Preachers often suggest this means we can pretty much put up our feet and rest – even our paraphrase has words to that effect – but I don't really buy that. The bullock driver doesn't harness up the animals only to have them sitting around the barn all day! What I hear is a call to work, but not the work that seems important to us and to the world. Instead, we are to engage in the work that Jesus wants us to do; and I've thought a great deal about what that is.

Since I've been a part of this congregation, I've slowly identified that I am a writer, by which I suppose I mean that I can weave words together with relative ease. One dominant myth in our society is that our profession forms our primary identity, and this can be especially true for a writer. When you read writer's manuals, they usually say, in effect, that the writing is more important than anything else; if you're a serious writer, life has to fit around the writing. This may mean not having children, or choosing to have just one. This may mean holing up in a garret and writing for hours every day. This may mean sacrificing a marriage or other significant relationships if they get in the way of the craft. And this may all be true if one is to write Great Works of Literature; I don't know because I haven't written any great works yet!

So our profession is usually understood to be the same thing as our vocation, perhaps especially for any sort of artist; and the two words are often used interchangeably, even by Christians. In my life, however, I find myself living a paradox. On the one hand, it is through living out the Christian life that I find myself becoming a writer; on the other, following God's call in its myriad aspects, which is the Christian vocation, seems to compromise my attempts to write.

This is because the work Jesus calls me to only sometimes looks like writing. Sure, I have a couple of blogs, and write for various publications; and sure, I try to infuse a sense of the holiness of the everyday into most things I write – and when I manage it, it feels like I am doing something good. And yet I am often called to do work that doesn't look like writing at all, work which, in fact, seems to detract from the writing.

I felt deeply called to have children, not one but three; and I have no doubt that it was the best thing I could have done. Yet trying to write with three children in the house is infuriating. Writing is a slow, contemplative, solitary endeavour, requiring a sharp and rested mind; children are messy, noisy beings who require frequent and immediate attention, often in the middle of the night. So solitude and rest, two things a writer needs, are rarely to be found in my house.

As well, I feel called to be part of church life. Belonging to any community involves commitment and work; here, I do the notice sheet and the kids' sheets. I don't mind the work, in fact I quite enjoy it, but any writer's manual would have hysterics at the precious hours of solitude I spend every week on those jobs.

I feel, too, that being part of a church is often hard work emotionally. Not only do I have to turn up when I'm in a foul mood or exhausted or just plain bored, but I have to work to resolve conflict and engage with all sorts of people. As you all know, it's difficult at times. Getting along with one another, learning to love one another, is hard. It is the work of long commitment: showing up, and biting one's tongue, and saying sorry – and at this church it often feels especially difficult. We live far away from each other, so we rarely bump into each other and have those spontaneous conversations that can be so life-giving; we are all different ages, so there is no big peer group that I can slot into and pretend that, with these cool people who affirm my lifestyle choices, I am forming church. Instead, I have to engage with everyone, not just the easy people; and I have to work on the relationships. This is not to say that the relationships aren't enjoyable – but they're certainly not always easy.

Most of these efforts – the conversations, the conflict resolution, the kids' activities, the notice sheet, the child raising, the laundry and the floors – don't look much like work in the eyes of the world. No one would call them my profession; and few understand how they can be part of my vocation. Yet they all arise out of invitations I have experienced at times of prayer. At my core, I have no doubt that they, along with the writing, constitute the work I am called to do; even so, this lack of cohesion or a dignified title can make me resentful.

That's when I need to hear the second part of Jesus' call. Not only am I called to do his work, but he says that his work will suit me, and the burden will be light. It is an invitation to joy – an invitation to find the work that leads to growth and maturity and delight in life.

There are times that I think I want a bit of acclaim as a writer; I dream of being a lonely artist making it in the big city. However, I am actually a very fragile person with all sorts of tendencies towards compulsive behaviour, depression, and self-hate. Loneliness and stress – which loom large in the highly stylized writer's life – are, for me, doors to a downward spiral, the sort of spiral which results not in Great Works of Literature, but in self loathing and the crumbling of any ability or desire to write, or indeed do much at all.

So what I need, that is, what suits me and has matured me and made me into someone with enough resilience and courage to begin to write, are the stability of a good marriage and loving children; the regular demands of family life; the steadiness of a church community; the practice of doing small jobs for others with faithfulness and humility; and the understanding that this life, too, is valuable. Staying true to these disciplines is part of my calling as I follow the way of Jesus Christ; and engaging in them has indeed eased my burden considerably.

Looking back at the disparate aspects of my vocation, I sense that they have had a great refining effect. The last decade has taught me all sorts of lessons about patience, humility, faithfulness, kindness, gentleness, hospitality and forgiveness. I have a great deal to learn, but I can also see that there's been a huge shift. I'm no longer the churned up and largely furious person I once was. Although those elements are still with me, I no longer feel dominated by them – and for this I am deeply grateful.

So in a nutshell, then, responding to the invitation of Jesus to take on his yoke does involve work. It may not be the sort of stuff we think of as work; and it may not lead to great respect or professional fulfilment or any of the other rewards we often think we should receive in return for our labour. In fact, there may be times when the work of Jesus feels absolutely tedious, like a bullock walking circles in a mill pit. But Jesus never promised we'd be ploughing fields with nice views, or that we'd see the fruit of our labour; perhaps our job is just to grind away. It doesn't matter.

What does matter is that this work, this acceptance of a yoke that, for me at least, means a quiet and largely invisible life built around personal relationships not professional acclaim, is slowly turning my heart of stone into one of flesh, the sort of flesh that can experience not only hurt and anger but also a wildly soaring joy. I used to experience life with a heavy heart, as if it were an enforced long march, or something to get through; now I find myself strolling along with a powerful sense of hope. Accepting Jesus' yoke and its various disciplines has led to my burden being lightened, indeed. And that, of course, is worth writing about.

The work of being me

This piece appeared in Zadok Perspectives No. 110 (Autumn 2011).

***

At the end of last year I was constantly sick and felt run down, even exhausted. Yet other friends were juggling kids and paid employment; and here was I, a stay at home mum, so wrecked I fell asleep at nine o'clock every night. I finally had a big cry with my husband. I told him I felt like a complete failure: unlike so many other mums, I didn't even work, and yet I was so tired my bones ached.

He looked at me bewildered. He pointed out that I did at least a day's volunteer work every week. On top of that, I juggled three blogs and wrote more than a hundred posts for them in a year; I published ten articles in newspapers or journals; I drafted another half dozen articles that had been rejected and were sitting in the back of the filing cabinet; I gave a lecture, wrote a paper and tutored a subject at uni; and I was raising three kids, two of them pre-school. Put like that, I guess I did a bit of work. Perhaps it was okay to be tired.

Even so, at some level I felt like it wasn't. After all, it wasn't 'real' work. I enjoy fooling around with words; I enjoy reading with refugee kids; I enjoy preparing resources for churches; I enjoy tutoring uni students; and for the most part, I even enjoy my own children! And I've always loved doing the laundry. But when I enjoy it all so much, it's hard to feel that doing these things is anything more than a hausfrau fooling around.

Yet it is work that needs to be done. Someone has to do the washing, or we won't have anything to wear; someone has to raise our kids. Someone has to read with refugees, teach students and engage the church. Someone has to tell stories about this crazy sad and wonderful world. In a small way, I have been invited to be that someone.

When I put these activities together, however, they're not neatly encapsulated in a role like 'doctor' or 'lawyer' or even 'writer' or 'housewife'. Instead, they reflect a whole life, sparkling with love and play and work all mixed up together. This whole life is not a job; instead, it's no more and no less than just being me, responding to the invitations set before me: a process I might identify as following God's call. So although the things I do are clearly tiring, it is difficult to name them as work.

Sadly, too, just being me doesn't pay the bills. And so the other reason that all this industry doesn't feel like much is that it was, for the most part, unpaid. I earned a little from tutoring, a little from published articles, a little from click throughs from my blogs to an online bookseller – all up, about half a mortgage payment. Hardly enough to break out the champers, or feed and clothe three kids.

Living without making a significant financial contribution to the household is an ongoing exercise in trust, and at times I feel like a freeloader. Sure, my husband and I negotiated this position; it makes perfect sense for him to be in paid employment, and for me to run the household. But every now and then, I panic. I want to earn my own money, show him my worth, and stop being dependent. In our society, the money we earn is a quantifiable achievement, and the thing that so often honours our ability, training and hard work. I feel like I am missing out.

I find myself browsing blogs on how to make my own blogs pay; or thinking about articles that might sell for cash. When I'm really down, I even contemplate being a secretary again.

– and then I wake up to myself. I'm not going to put tummy slimming ads on my food blog, or gaudy advertisements next to a post on grief. That's far more humiliating than being financially dependent on someone who respects me for who I am, not what I earn.

There's a lesson in that. My husband knows my worth and values what I do; my friends and community don't judge me for the lack of a weekly pay packet – so why judge myself? While my activities may sometimes feel pointless for their lack of coherence or direction, they also feel right. Could I ignore the money, and think about the blessings of living out this call instead?

When I stop for a moment and reflect, I soon realise how great they are. After all, how privileged I am to be able to share books with young refugees. How fortunate I am to be able to tell stories, and to have found a medium to share them. How honoured I am to be asked to guide students in their studies. How fun it is to dream up activities and watch the church kids run with them. How delightful it is to cook for my family and friends. And how lucky I am to love doing laundry, and to have a family that generates so much of it!

A Thursday ritual

My husband is in charge on Thursday afternoons. He comes home early from work; collects the kids from school, always remembering a snack; takes them to the park of their choice for a long play; then brings them home and cooks dinner. Later, he reads them stories and puts them to bed.

Because I can't keep my mouth shut, can't stop myself from taking over the kids and the cooking and the shouting if I'm at home, I agree to be banished from the house. I head to a local bar, buy a glass of wine, and settle down at 'my' table to read or write. Later, perhaps, I might meet a friend and grab a bite to eat; then it's off to choir to sing my heart out and sit round gossiping with a group of mums. It's a highlight of my week, the evening I look forward to from sometime early Wednesday. Sure, most weeks sparkle with small good things; but this ritual feeds my soul. And what is good for my soul is good for my kids; without it, I have a tendency to become tyrannical.

What intrigues me is how easily I will jeopardize, even cancel, it. Last week, there was no choir; instead, our choir director held a concert of her piano students, which include my daughter. Meanwhile, my husband had not been able to be home for dinner yet that week. Because there was no choir and my husband hadn't been home, I thought I should stick around; even so, my husband urged me to go out, then meet us at the concert. But I decided that would be selfish; that we needed to eat as a family; and that I should stay.

When my husband and the kids surged in the door from school, at least one person looked disappointed that I had crashed their only weeknight together. I began to worry about dinner and what we would eat even as my husband heated pasta water. One kid shouted, another shrieked, I yelled, and my husband looked at me. 'Maybe,' I said, 'maybe, I really should go out? Would you mind?'.

'Go!' he urged me, 'please go!' and gave me a big hug. So finally, an hour later than usual, I pulled on my boots, packed my bag, and toddled off, wittering and apologising all the way – and feeling so selfish. Extraordinary, really, given that I had done the whole kiddie food – story – bed routine three nights in a row, and would do it again on Friday; Fridays are always a late night for him.

I have internalized so many ideas of what makes a good mother; one of them is about being present. A good mother doesn't go out for no reason; and she certainly doesn't squander money on wine in bars and a meal out! And yet, is this really true? Surely after seven years I have learned by now that without this sort of activity I become lonely, bored, ground down and angry; going out gives me the fillip I need to enjoy my children and to want to be with them most of the time.

My life revolves around laundry and floors, playgrounds and dishes; my Thursday ritual gives me a bit of structure, a bit of adult input. I get to walk at my speed, chat with adults or sit quietly. It's the only meal I eat in complete dignity, with no need to discipline anyone, no complaints about the food, and nobody's crusts ending up on my plate. Even without choir, just two hours alone out of the house far from the jobs that perpetually nag me is profoundly life-giving.

I may not be able to claim it for myself every week, but I give thanks for a husband who is wiser than me, who can gently nudge me towards the front door. 'Go!' he urges, 'Go!'. Obedient wife that I am, I nod my head, pull on my shoes and pack my bag; and dutifully I walk right out that door.

Photograph shows my middle daughter 'flying' to Mousehole in Cornwall - it's how I feel when I leave the house on Thursdays!

Mrs Perfect, go to hell

Many people use the time of Lent to give things up, things upon which they are unhealthily dependent, as a way of investigating the hold those things have over them. This year, some friends gave up drinking to investigate how reliant they are on beer as a social lubricant; others gave up not drinking, to investigate the ways they might be holding back from social situations. People give up social media, or even all electronic devices altogether, and kids often give up chocolate, or a particular game or toy.

Me, I'm not giving up any of those things. I might need these props to help me challenge the one thing I am trying to tackle head-on, with, it must be said, no expectation of success. But perhaps there is dignity in the attempt!

This Lent, I'm trying to give up Mrs Perfect. She's not easy to give up; in fact, I've been trying to silence her for years. But in these next few weeks I am putting some serious energy into naming and shaming her.

She's the sanctimonious voice that whispers, 'A real mother wouldn't have done that', or 'If you were a better person, then....'. She's the one who tells me a hundred times a day, in a hundred different ways, that I'm not good enough, never have been, never will be. And it's more than time that she went to hell.

These are some of the things she says, and which I struggle to deny:

You're not a naturally maternal type. It's true that I'm no earth mother goddess. I don't breastfeed my kids past six months, I don't make my own yoghurt, I don't bother with a highly charged tantric sexual practice with my husband, I don't home birth, I don't knit, and I use the public education system. Worse, I'm shy around strange kids, I'm scared of kids in groups, and it takes me time to get to know them.

But what exactly is a 'naturally maternal type'? I have given birth to three children, with very little intervention. I have raised them as best I can in a relatively clean and loving home. I have cared for five other little kids while their mothers went back to work; and I am about to be trusted with a sixth. I spend hours every week with kids – kids in the classroom, kids in the schoolyard, kids in the playground – and the ones I know smile when they see me and tell me their stories. Their friends come over and introduce themselves and have a conversation too.

Mrs Perfect, I don't know what you're talking about. You're a silly old bitch.

If you're not going to be an earth mother goddess, you could at least work. By that, she means I should be back in paid employment and building a career. Her comment stings, because at one level I think I want a career, and yet my actions show me I don't. If I pause for a moment and reflect, it's clear why not. On the one hand, I can't stand to leave my pre-school kids in childcare, or even for very many hours at a time, with anyone except my husband; and on the other, I had perhaps fifteen jobs before having kids, and I pretty much hated every single one of them. Sitting at a desk and doing repetitive tasks in an air conditioned office turns me toxic. I hate phones, I hate politics, I hate work clothes, I hate commuting... enough said.

On a bad day at home with kids, a grindingly repetitive task can make me cry. But at home at least I can weep with frustration and let those healing tears do their job; at work, the emotion turns inward and sour. So no, Mrs Perfect, I won't go back to crappy paid employment unless I absolutely have to. In any case, what, exactly, is work? I run a household, garden, cook and clean, I read with kids and I write. Couldn't that be enough?

But if you were really serious about writing, you'd have written a book by now. Perhaps, I say, but I haven't. I've slowly written the equivalent of a book, but instead of having generated a great burden of hope, a mass of paper which bounces from rejection to rejection, I've put things up on the blog and had some fun with it.

That writing is pointless, says Mrs P about a thousand times a day.

I certainly have times when I can only see the flaws, hate what I write, and despise myself for having written it. Habits of self-loathing runs deep. But I write in faith, which is not a feeling but an attitude. With that attitude, I write the best I can about what is most pressing at that moment, then set the words free. It doesn't matter how I feel about myself that day. Someone somewhere may find my words useful; and I write in faith that they will.

That's all very well, but you're terribly lazy. Well yes, that may be true. For example, my father is picking up the older girls from school and staying for dinner. I'm not planning much, just half a quiche leftover from last night and a couple of salads. I will fret about this decision all day, and feel guilty that I'm not cooking up a storm; but the food is there, and it is very good, and in any case I'll probably bake something for afternoon tea.

Apart from failing to cook a three course dinner, the floor needs a mop, the toilet a scrub, and here I am writing. Perhaps I am lazy, but the writing exhausts me – and yet, for all its exhausting pointlessness, it feels too necessary to ignore it and scrub the toilet instead. When I'm finished writing, I'll sit in a chair for ten minutes before the after school onslaught begins. Better a dirty floor than to make myself so tired that I scream the kids to bed.

Speaking of that laziness, you're still carrying the baby weight. Well, it bugs me too, but it's time to get over it. I've had three kids; I'm hardly going to look like I'm eighteen. Anyway, when I was eighteen I was miserable and fat. I don't have a nanny or a personal trainer and, like so many adults who spend their lives hanging around little kids, I keep getting sick. Every time I get into an exercise routine, I catch another cold or bout of gastro, and that's it for a couple of weeks. You may remember, Mrs P, that I was up until one last night hacking away with my latest chesty cough?

Anyway, I suspect my kids think my soft breasts and tummy make for nicer cuddles. So there, Mrs P, you scrawny old prune.

Observation: Every morning and afternoon, my two year old runs into the schoolyard and throws her arms around first one mother, then another, then perhaps a child she is particularly fond of. A wildly confident passionately loving child like this does not come out of a terrible home.

Conclusion: My parenting is good enough. There is always room for improvement, but that doesn't mean I have to listen to that sly voice which tells me every hour of every day that everything I do is flawed.

Conclusion: Mrs Perfect can go to hell.

Even my failures can produce something beautiful

The kids were exhausted, so I fed them early. I couldn't face either the food or the hour, so while they were eating I prepared something else, then turned off the stove. A stack of stories later, I caught a whiff of burning; extricating myself from a pile of daughters I found I had left a burner on. My adulterated beans were now a charred mess. I whisked the saucepan outside and dumped it on a table in the rain, next to a curl of chicken poo, and went back inside.

The next day, I flicked the burned beans to the hens and brought in the pot, filled it with water, and put it in the sink to soak.

Hours later, I was reading to my four year old and listening to our kitchen tap. It drips intermittently, and has for years. This is one overdesigned tap: there's no washer to replace; instead, the whole tap has to go. A new tap has been sitting in the study for months, and every time I go in there I look at the box on the desk and sigh. It reminds me that we need to get a plumber in, again; and also that we have a leak in the roof, a leak that has been around for five years three plumbers and a friend and which somehow symbolises all the things I have not done. The roof leaks; the paint is peeling; the doors stick; we have no fly screens; the trees are buggy; the backyard is covered with rotting pears; and there's chicken poo on the outside table. As the tap drips, I hear the sound of failure over and over again.

But this day, reading to my daughter and listening to the drip, I happened to glance up and see a kaleidoscope of light. With every drip, the light contracted then exploded, sending bright shards across the ceiling. The surface was alive with pure white light refracted from the filthy cooking pot.

Wedged into a chair with a daughter in my lap, the sun slanting in, I saw that even my failures have a beauty of their own. The burnt pot, the dripping tap, the leaky roof, the peeling paint, the fight with a daughter, the grief for my mum, the toes I step on, the nights when I shout: everything I do badly shrunk down to size, and for a moment I was transfixed not by my failures, but by a ceiling charged with shooting stars.

Sunday, 10pm

Above me,
the rustle of a bat
the soft thump of a falling pear.
Behind me,
chickens stir then settle,
crooning themselves to sleep.
Around me,
cool night air
the muffled voices of neighbours
the clink of a glass.
Below me,
my mother's wicker basket
a tangle of wet towels.
Before me,
a clothesline, some pegs,
my mother's hands at work
and peeking over the fence:
the moon.

Housewife / Writer

Last Monday, I went to see a new GP. As it was my first visit, I had to fill out an intake form. Like every form, there was a space for 'profession'; and, like every form, I left it blank. I hate to write 'housewife', and 'writer' seems too try-hard. Anyway, it doesn't earn an income.

The doctor checked my details, then asked me what I did. I explained that I was home with kids, but added that I sometimes write. 'Oh,' she said, 'you're a writer', and filled in the box, just like that. 'But I don't have time to write much,' I protested. She grinned. 'Anyone with three kids doesn't have time for much,' she said, and stood up; and I, filled with pride that according to this calm and lovely woman I Am A Writer, dropped my pants and had the most relaxed pap smear of my life.

On Tuesday, I took a daughter to a new friend's house for a play. As I was chatting with the mother, she asked me what I did. I explained that I was home mostly, but, remembering the doctor's office, added that I wrote a little. 'Does that earn a living?' she asked, one eyebrow raised. I found myself apologising that my husband earns enough for all of us, and so it didn't really matter – though in fact I did earn a little. 'Enough to pay for a few hours of childcare,' I added in a little voice, then felt so pathetic that I crept out the door.

Later I was filled with rage – first at her, then at the lovely doctor, and finally at me. Yet all three of us were operating out of the same model, society's dominant model: that a profession is the measure of someone. How each of us understood this differed, but the model was at the root of my rage, because in this model, I have no worth.

Although I initially felt affirmed by the doctor, on reflection I realise she dismissed four fifths of my life. I spend most of my time cooking, cleaning and fooling around with kids. These activities aren't always interesting or satisfying; but they are my reality, and they feed the writing no end. Without them, I'm not sure I could write at all. I can't dismiss them; and nor should she.

On the other hand, the friend's mother hinted that being a writer was suspect because it's not salaried. I regularly encounter the attitude that a good wife contributes financially to the household. If she has children, she contributes less than her partner because she spends more hours doing childcare and housework; however, her financial contribution is the fundamental indicator of her worth. I know many women who have put their kids into childcare and gone back to work not because they want to, but at the insistence of their partners that they 'contribute'; and I wonder who, exactly, does all the housework now?

I have no problem with willing women going back to work, and I understand that in many cases it's a financial necessity, but I reject the premise that a woman's contribution – or anyone's contribution – is measureable only in terms of economics. Other things, such as caring for kids, cleaning the house, offering hospitality and engaging in volunteer work make an enormous difference to a family, and to a society. They are indispensable, even if they're not economically valuable.

Would the world be a better place if I parked my kids in childcare, became a dental hygienist and added a second income to the household? Clearly not, although my kids' teeth might get a little cleaner. And yet the housework I do is so often dismissed, by others and, so much worse, by me, because it's not a profession; and the writing, because it's not an earner.

I found myself wondering when will the world – including women – value women's work: answering questions, wiping bottoms, folding clothes, peeling carrots and telling stories? No one asks whether I earn a living working from seven in the morning to eight at night, rinsing out wet undies and preparing meals and weeding the vegetable patch and swooping the vacuum cleaner over the floors. No one asks about income when I'm years short of sleep and woken at five in the morning by a kick in the kidneys from a four year old's foot. That work's a given; of course I do it, and of course it's unpaid.

And it is work. Sometimes it's so boring I could shriek; sometimes it's so frustrating and lonely and enraging and tedious that I could run screaming out the door. Other times it's fun, satisfying, enriching, enjoyable, or just a doddle. It's like any job, really: good and bad, except it's fundamentally relational, and it's grounded in love. I am lucky, too, that I can also write about it, and tell the familiar story. Whether or not the sweeping and the story-telling earn an income is really beside the point.

So I can't remain angry at the doctor or the mum for wanting to put me in a work box one way or another; they're just reflecting a societal attitude. In any case, the person I'm really angry at is, of course, me. I am the one who doesn't want to put 'housewife' on any form; I'm embarrassed to be such a fifties cliché. I am the one who feels apologetic that when I'm not caring for kids I'm not really earning money either. I've fallen into exactly the same trap as the doctor and the mother; I struggle to feel valued and, more importantly, to value myself in the work I do. Whether it's mopping the floors or stringing sentences together, picking up blocks or jotting down ideas, I still don't feel like it's Work.

Perhaps it isn't in the eyes of man, but to this woman, it undeniably is. And it's unavoidable. For all my ambivalence about what I do and how I describe it, I still have meals to cook, children to care for, and the burning urge to write. But can I stop being dismissive about it, to myself and to others? Can I claim it, name it, shout it from the rooftops? Can I turn questions about money into questions about worth? Can I write proudly on a form 'Housewife / Writer'?

The evidence suggests not yet. But someday, perhaps, someday.

Quiet Interlude (22’17)

I'm lying on my bed, fully dressed. I can hear my two year old in her room telling herself a story, and the creak as she rolls over and settles in for a snooze. The other kids are at school, at a friend's house. Outside, the north wind is roaring through the trees with the sound of crashing waves. Dry leaves and tan dust and deep pink rose petals are tossed through the air. A battered cardboard box tumbles down our street, flapping broken wings as it rebounds from parked cars and telephone poles.

Inside is cool and still. I sink into my husband's pillow and inhale his faint scent.

I think of all the things that have not been done, the jobs that are waiting; but tell myself that I will open my eyes at the right time. Other worries rear up. I breathe them away for later, and with each exhalation feel my legs, my fingers, my arms, my belly, my face relax. With a sense of permission and a surge of gratitude, I glide down into the space of sleeping awake.

I can hear the wind, the trees, my toddler turning in her bed; I can feel myself sleeping. The faces and events of the morning, the week, the month scroll past and I wish them well as they drift away...

 

The house of my childhood...

 

An overgrown garden...

 

A sky full of rain...

 

And it is time. My eyes spring open. Filled with sweetness, I flip my legs over the side of the bed and float down the corridor. I make coffee in a dreamy state, and stand at the kitchen sink sipping and watching chickens; then I glance at the list, sigh, and get out the vacuum cleaner.

A fistful of poo

Yesterday morning began when a toddler came crying into my room, holding a moist and squishy turd in her hand. 'My done a poo!' she was sobbing, aghast as it oozed between her fingers. She's been experimenting with nappy off time lately, and this is the first time it's coincided with a bowel movement. 'Well, that's one way to learn,' I thought, as I somewhat gingerly knelt to cuddle her, then called for the other girls to bring me some wipes immediately.

'We can't find them,' they called in singsong unison. I told them exactly where they were, but again they sang, 'We can't find them. They're not here.'

So I left my two year old with instructions to Stand Still Don't Move!, and fetched them myself from exactly where I said they were, where they have indeed been for six years and eleven months now; and cleaning up the mess I fumed at four and six year olds and their selective blindness.

Twenty minutes later my four year old traipsed chicken poo through the back room.

And that's when I began to shout. I shouted and shouted as I dug out the paper towels and picked up stinky chicken droppings from the mat and the rug, and collected a great green-tinged ball from under the kitchen table.

And then I had to say, 'I'm sorry.'

I've been exhausted lately, tired and flat and sick of the kids and life at home. I feel like I had one child too many. I'm more than ready for them all to be out of the house six hours a day while I do other things. I'm tired of watching 'ballet concerts' and puppet shows and tired of picking up the mess or corralling them into doing it. I'm fed up with their squabbling, and the two year old's tantrums, and hearing her shout 'no' every minute of the day. I'm tired of being the adult, understanding and mature; and I'm tired of failing to be the adult, of losing my temper or just shutting the kids out. I'm sick of being patient, of tricking a two year old into keeping her shoes on or sitting in a car seat. I just want to slap her.

My two and four year olds squabble over who gets to sit in my lap; who gets to listen to a story. 'Go away!' screams the two year old at her sister, 'Don't listen!'. I talk about sharing until I'm blue in the face; I talk about the expansiveness of love. And then one of them hits the other. I'm so sick of them fighting over the pecking order, I could scream.

And I'm totally fed up with faeces, human or otherwise.

I've felt this way for months, on and off. Yet I do have a two year old. I can't park her in day care five days a week just because I'm fed up; yet I wonder how I got to the point that I even daydream such a thing.

I can't really believe I made the wrong decision to have a third child.

I had been certain we should have only two kids and yet was devastated by the thought. In private I cried time and again; and late one night, after I picked up a friend from the airport and we talked the way you do when it's dark outside and you're driving fast, I started sobbing, blinded by tears as I roared on at 110. I wiped my streaming eyes and nose with my sleeve, and glanced at her. She was looking at me oddly; then she said kindly, quietly, 'You can have three, you know.' It was a thunderbolt, a revelation, a gift; and I snuffled and wept in pathetic gratitude as I turned onto Bell Street and steered the way home.

And I had such clear visions, such beautiful images when I sat with the idea. I saw a group of children running up the stairs into the sky, colourful skirts swirling and voices laughing; I saw loving arms extended towards me, and a baby lying between us, and knew that to enter into the presence of love was to pick the baby up.

How did I get from that to this? Is my two year old really so hard, so devastating, that I don't want to be home with my children anymore? Well, no. She may be flexing her independence, but even in my jaded state I can see she's an absolute delight. Maybe it's just that, after almost seven years at home, I've had enough. And yet I have no choice; I must find ways to cherish it or I'll go mad.

After school today I put on a video, too flat to encourage another option – my kids don't fight when they're hypnotized by tv. But instead of using it as a babysitter while I rushed around and did things, for once I sat in the lounge room and watched with them. My four year old came and curled up in my lap; my two year old snuggled into my side. After the movie, my six year old wandered over for a hug and a kiss.

And maybe, just maybe, there's a clue. Maybe it was okay for the floor to stay crunchy; the second load of washing can wait. Maybe the garden can stay weedy; the papers can stay in a heap on the bench; my inbox can load up unread emails while I watch Mary Poppins. Maybe if I could sit with my kids more often, rather than forever Organising and Doing, things might feel a little easier.

How to manage it, I don't quite know. The washing can't wait forever; kids still have to get to kinder and school; the floor really is disgusting most nights. But a latte and a babycino in a coffee shop; a long play in a shady park; a lazy morning with books or friends; a slow visit to the library; a shared cooking activity: perhaps these ways of taking time, of drifting at a childlike pace – exactly the activities that are so easily axed when it all feels too grindingly tedious and the drive to be busy dominates – perhaps, just perhaps, they are as necessary to our family's health as the prompt cleaning up of the poo.