Everyday Life

I wrote in my book The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars that one amazing piece of the parenting experience for me was that wrapped up in the most mundane acts--teaching kids manners at the playground, keeping one's temper cool, engaging other parents--were the largest philosophical issues we ever face. Ethics of relation, of psychology, of language, it's all there in the tedium of everyday life with children, and part of what so fascinated me about being a parent.

I find that the current political discourse on mothers and parenting (as in the entry just below this one) deadens the ease of feeling at one with parenting. It's an alternate universe of scathe and snark. It's quite toxic.

Which is why sometimes I must tread back to the nursery where the baby laughs while her older sister tickles her tummy, where they both giggle till the elder leaves the room and I'm left with a nursing baby and a few quiet moments to sink into the pages in <i>A Secret Garden</i> where Mary is befriended by the red-breasted robin and savor the beauty of the words. Our shared political life would sure be different if for a second, joy and desire and love could enter into the conversation.

I'm reminded of that again. Most of my days take on a very predictable rhythm for me. Morning rush, schoolbus, morning walk. Three days a week, babysitter arrives and I work. Lunch. Baby time. Baby nap. School pick-up. Play with two children. Forage dinner. Greet husband returning from work. We put children to bed, wash them first. Climb the stairs to my office and do some work.

Today Samira was off from school, and it was rainy out, so apart from a single errand to the hardware store, we stayed home. I felt once again the pull of loving to be with my kids, and being quite exhausted by day's end, exhausted even by two children who were very well behaved. My hat's off to any parent anywhere home with their children fulltime, because it is not easy. Still, that sense of filling time, passing time, and the rich texture of just being together--even when at times I'd rather be working, and still, we are together--so compels me. Life felt different today, and even with all those hours we didn't get to all the projects. We didn't get to figure out the third page of the origami book. We didn't get to the faux stained glass project received as a birthday present. And at 5 pm, I still hadn't had my morning tea. 5.05: I sent my chatterbox eight-year-old into another room. I poured my tea and sat at the kitchen table and fed the baby. I needed, as they say, a moment of silence. Perhaps a whole silent meeting.

It's so important that mothers and all women are telling each other about the intimacies and ordinariness of our lives. Our language is still unhearable by the mainstream media, which has its own ax to grind about our lives. Still, we must be brave and trade stories and insights, in these new ways, with our new media, believing in ourselves and our values and our journeys.