work-a-day mom

This month's unschooling "blog carnival" is on the subject of unschooling parents engaged in gainful employment, and I thought I'd chime in:

Every morning around 430 George gets up and makes me coffee. He's sweet like that. Now that it's turned cold, he also builds up the fire in the woodstove. We sit in bed together, drinking coffee for about half an hour, and then its up and breakfast and put a lunch together and find the mp3 player and if its Monday I grab the week's laundry to leave in my locker and its out the door I go, to change into my plaster-covered work clothes in the restroom at work, before clocking in.

This is where I work, if you're interested and/or have a hankerin' for some really fancy crown moulding:

http://www.castdesignsupply.com/

George's sweetness in the mornings carries me through the first part of the day, and often the whole day. Most of my coworkers aren't terribly sweet, so the thought of dear, sweet George at home with the kids is a kind of balm when the negativity starts to peak. Its amazing to me how negative some people can be. I'm not talking about cynicism, per se. Its more of an attitude of "I just don't give a shit". About everything. Today one fellow was complaining that the preacher at his church gave a sermon on "Love" - went on and on about it. The other guys commiserated: "You shoulda walked out." I stood there thinking about George, curled up against my shoulder just that morning saying "I love you" and "Thanks for being nice to me." Sweet.

Sweet was the first compliment I ever gave George. I remember him wriggling and glowing with embarrassed pleasure. He's still sweet. He's been fretting about all the things he can't do now that he's hurt his shoulder again (did I tell you? He slipped and fell on his bad shoulder and its hurting again. Bummer!) and he's kind of fallen into a rut with the kids so I've been helping him and them think of projects and games and activities and just Things to Do Together. Especially indoor things, since its chilly and damp and its a hassle to keep both woodstoves going (house and barn). This week I've come home to sweetness and smiles. Not as many dishes are getting washed, but I'll help him catch up on the weekend. I'll take smiles over dishes.

Okay, to be utterly truthful, most of the time I'll take smiles over dishes. There are days, though, when I come home and shudder. Not that I was a picture of tidiness when I was the at-home parent! But there are days when I'm worn out with Doing - casting and cleaning and patching and cleaning and sanding and cleaning (plaster is messy!) - and the idea of coming home to wade through the detritus of an unschooling day and have to wash my own coffee cup is enough to make me shudder. Some days I sensibly take an emergency chocolate break before I go home, but sssshhhhh! don't tell on me!

I'm glad to have been on the other side, as it were - to have been the one at home. It helps me to envision the happiness that led up to the scraps of pink and yellow and blue cupcake wrappers all over the house, the pile of muddy shoes, the trail of sugar leading halfway to the stairs (or maybe from the stairs), the total absence of spoons. I'm lucky that way. I can piece together the stories from the scraps and smears and random comments.

I'm lucky, too, that I had time to absorb all the sweetness that comes from living an unschooling life. Not that every day was cupcakes. Not that I was (or am) always the sweetest person in the world. But to live in a home where sweetness is valued! To live surrounded by love, sometimes inconvenient, sometimes stuck all over with juice and cat hairs, sometimes grumpy or awkward or just plain tired, but love, nonetheless. It makes it easier for me to go to work, just knowing I'm supporting that kind of life for the kids and George.

Most of the time I enjoy my job, even if I'm not always thrilled with my coworkers. I like being on my feet most of the day, and I like creating things. So much of what I do at work comes down to attention to detail and dexterity - I love that. Its satisfying. I like the fact that so much of what I do teases at the very edge of what I already know - I'm always learning! I love that part. I love the fact that the Ops mgr runs up to me in a panic and blurts out questions like "do you think you could cast xyz in some material you've never even heard of before?" I love saying Yes! to those sorts of questions. So I have no idea what he's talking about! I'll learn!

I really like working for a small business, too. That's something I've done before and it fits my skills and lifestyle and quirky ideology all at once. I certainly can't support small local businesses by buying from them very often! The owner and ops mgr are sometimes amused and nonplussed at my starry eyed idealism. I come by it honestly, though - my parents and brother are all idealists (yeah, I'm on to you, dad) in their own ways.

I love the fact that I can go home to a family where optimism and enthusiasm are part of the daily life. I remember the homeschooling days of trying to shove Ray into learning, and the school days of homework and stress and above all, aversion to learning. That was ugly. That's the kind of attitude I run into with my coworkers! An aversion to learning and trying new things. Even when one of the guys gets excited about learning something new he has to temper it in front of the other guys - shrug and find something to complain about. Now and then one of them will share a little enthusiasm with me. They know I'm safe, in a way. I still jump up and down and clap my hands when I get to try something big and new and impossible.

I miss my days at home sometimes, but I'm fascinated by the new relationships developing between George and the kids. He's still getting his feet under him, in some ways - his troublesome shoulder combined with his guitar making keep throwing kinks in the wheels. But he's figuring out how to do what he does and be a full time Dad, too. That's exciting. In a way, its part of what makes the whole having to go to work thing more than simply a chore I'm slogging through for the sake of the family. We're all learning to do and be differently than we were before. It only looked impossible from the other side.