BLOG RERUN: One unfortunate side effect of full-time work is feeling disconnected from the day-to-day reality of your home

True to form, the AI Blog Post Image Generator created this surrealistic tableau when I prompted it with the phrase "busy household." Yet somehow I think it fits.

(I originally posted this on November 27, 2015. It still rings true.)

We are a single-income family. I go to work five (sometimes six) days a week, while my wife Terry stays home and runs the house. This is no small feat, considering that seven of us live there, but she does it well.

Or at least I assume she does it well, because I am rarely a witness to the daily operations of our household. I leave for work at 7 a.m. and am usually not home until somewhere between 6 and 7 p.m. In between, there's a whole bunch of stuff that happens without any input from me whatsoever.

Well, except the money. The money I earn funds the operation. But that's OK because I like it that way. As I always say, I am in charge of Accounts Receivable. My wife – who pays the bills and manages monetary outlays – has complete jurisdiction over Accounts Payable. This system works for me.

But on those days when I happen to be off or working from home, I get a glimpse into how one goes about helping to manage the lives of two college students, two high schoolers and a middle schooler. Terry is constantly running to and fro, packing lunches, helping with homework, reminding kids to do this assignment or practice that piece of music for band.

She spends much of her days driving to various schools to drop off forgotten soccer socks and misplaced trumpets. She runs errands and cleans the house. She serves as the Uniform Mom for the high school band, a never-ending job that requires gobs and gobs of hours and effort. 

She goes to daytime school events, emails teachers when there are issues to be addressed, and takes kids to various doctor and dentist appointments.

It's like this day after day after day after day.

And all the while I get only a glimpse into it. I hear about what's going on through hurried texts and quick afternoon check-in phone calls.

A typical conversation between Terry and me goes like this:

ME: So how was your day?

TERRY: <proceeds to rattle off 147 different things she did involving the kids>

ME: You did all that? Today?

TERRY: Yes.

ME: This Melanie person you mention. That's our ninth-grader, right?

And so on.

Don't get me wrong, this approach to life is a good one for us. Or at least it is for me, as I'm not the one having to serve as cook, maid, chauffeur and administrative assistant for six other people with crazy schedules. But I think Terry is OK with it, too.

It's just that all of these things happen without my knowing it, which makes me feel a bit disconnected from the reality. It's as if the family lives a separate life that I get to participate in for only a few short hours every night and on weekends.

Speaking of my family, if you see them, tell them I said hello. I miss them. And I'm fairly sure I know all of their names, too.

My daughter turns 30 on Sunday, and I hope you'll watch this short video and read this old blog post

 

In two days, my daughter Elissa turns 30 years old. I could go on and on about the things that make Elissa an impressive force of nature, but if you know her, you're already aware. And if you don't know her, I hope you don't mind if I indulge in a bit of nostalgia. I originally posted this video (and the words below) on the blog on January 22, 2021. I bring them back today because, no matter how old Elissa and our other kids get, there's always a part of me that will think of them like this. At this age. At this particular stage of life...

A few years ago, I posted this video on Facebook, accompanied by these words:

Parents of young children, I know you're tired. I get it. I spent several years living the life you're living now. But believe me when I say you're going to miss the chaos. It's a lot of fun having older kids, but I would love to go back and relive moments like this one every once in a while. Which I suppose I could, but I might not survive if they all smothered me like this now. This was shot in late October 2001, which would have made Elissa 7, Chloe 5, Jared 3, and Melanie a little more than a year old (and Jack that proverbial twinkle in the eye).

All four kids shown in this video are at this moment in their 20s. And as noted, our youngest was still 4+ years away from being born.

Having little kids is an exhausting business. It requires constant mental alertness, emotional investment, and physical exertion. You are part teacher, part caretaker, and part goat herder.

When we were in this stage of parenthood, people often told me to enjoy it, that someday it would be gone and I would miss it, etc. It's not that I didn't believe them, I just never really thought very far ahead in those days. It was always about getting through that particular week.

Not that life suddenly becomes a cakewalk when your kids get older, but I do find I have a lot more room to breathe in 2021 than I did in 2001. Just from a stress perspective, it's better to be here than there.

But every once in a while, when it's quiet in our house in the evening, I find myself missing the chaos of two decades ago. There was always a diaper to change, a child to feed, a crier to attend to. It was all Barney, Teletubbies, Winnie the Pooh, and whatever PBS Kids had to offer up that day. It was loud, tiring, and frankly annoying more times than I care to admit.

But it was also wonderful. All of it. I realize the distance of time accentuates the positive and diminishes the negative, but even then, there was a part of me that knew I had it good.

I still have it good. I wouldn't go back to that time permanently for all the money in the world.

Maybe just a 10-minute visit, though. Just long enough to hold a happy baby, do zerberts on some toddler's soft belly, and get in a quick game of Candyland.

That would be nice.

Maybe that's what grandkids are for...reliving the best parts of the maelstrom of parenthood that, in truth, passed by all too fast without you realizing it.

I wouldn't know. We're not in that stage of life...yet. But it's coming.

In the meantime, I have the memories. And thanks to digital technology, I have the videos.

For now, that's enough.

The value of selective memory in parenting

I was on Twitter ("X," whatever) recently and came across this tweet from a young woman named Emily whose content I always find engaging and thought provoking. This is what she said:

"ok do neurotypical parents not find a toddler saying “MAMA!!!!! PICK UP!!!” ten thousand times overstimulating???what if there’s a baby crying at the same time? and you’re also hungry? And Bluey is blaring in the background? are some people feeling totally calm in this scenario?"

Most who commented on the tweet said exactly what I wanted to say: "Oh gosh, believe me, you're not alone. Every parent feels like that. It comes with the territory and is absolutely normal. Trust me, Emily, you're doing great!"

There was one comment from a mom of five who said that, in those situations, rather than stressing out, she revels in the chaos and is always calm. It may have been a well-intended response, but it came across as a little self-righteous. We parents of larger families are sometimes really good at saying unhelpful things like this, and as a rule, it's usually best simply to ignore us.

Anyway, Emily's plight reminded me how parents are so adept at filtering out the bad parts of parenting and retaining only the good stuff in their memories. Terry and I had plenty of times when the whole experience of raising offspring seemed impossible and we cursed our combined fertility.

Parenting is hard. It's supposed to be hard. You're charged with caring for these small, helpless creatures and keeping them alive while trying to mold them into civilized human beings. There is nothing easy about that, and being overwhelmed is just about the most natural reaction I can think of.

It is, in some ways, remarkable that anyone ever chooses to have a second child. The drain of raising just one rugrat is enough to make any sane person swear off the whole experience.

Yet we do it all the time. Mothers who endure pregnancy and birth routinely opt to do it again. And again. And in cases like my wife, throw in a couple more "agains."

The only explanation for this is that the rewards of parenting far outweigh the frustrations. And by that I mean the long-term rewards, because there will be stretches in your parenting journey in the midst of which it will be difficult to rationalize why you got yourself into it all in the first place.

The only thing I can say to young parents is something they already know, at least in their logical brains, which is that eventually it gets somewhat easier. And the little ones really do grow up. And somehow, perhaps unbelievably, there will come a day when you miss the chaos.

That includes you, Emily. Even if you don't realize it, those three kids are incredibly blessed to have you as a mom.

(NOTE: Today is my daughter Chloe's birthday. She is somehow 27 years old and still one of the most amazing people I know. Happy birthday to our second-born!)

It's like we're a family of 11, really

My four oldest children each have longer-term significant others. This means that, whenever we all get together for any occasion (birthdays, holidays, backyard fires, etc.), what used to be just our family of seven becomes a group of 11 people.

And it's awesome. I love when we're all in one place and it's loud, chaotic, and fun. We'll play a game. We'll just talk. We'll tell jokes and stories. It's wild, headache-inducing stuff.

I wouldn't trade it for anything.

At some point, when one of these kids manages to start producing grandchildren—and please note that I am in no way trying to rush this process along—we will become a group of 12. Then 13. Then who knows how many?

That will be even better.

Imagine the Christmases!

Even when there are piles of dishes to wash afterward and you're dead tired once everyone goes home, you still realize you've made another bunch of great memories.

It's exactly what you sign up for when you have multiple kids.

I'm not sure it gets any better.

These, believe it or not, are your finest days

(NOTE: This is the Blog Rerun for January. This post still describes my life, and I suspect it also describes the chaotic but wonderful existence of many who read this blog as well. It originally ran on July 26, 2013.)

If you don't mind, I'd like for you to read a quote I've lifted from a novel called "Water for Elephants." It's a tad long, but it sets the stage for my ramblings today, and you may even find it as inspirational as I do:

Those were the salad days, the halcyon years! The sleepless nights, the wailing babies; the days the interior of the house looked like it had been hit by a hurricane; the times I had five kids, a chimpanzee, and a wife in bed with fever. Even when the fourth glass of milk got spilled in a single night, or the shrill screeching threatened to split my skull, or when I was bailing out some son or other...from a minor predicament at the police station, they were good years, grand years.

But it all zipped by. One minute Marlena and I were in it up to our eyeballs, and next thing we knew the kids were borrowing the car and fleeing the coop for college. And now, here I am. In my nineties and all alone.

You don't have to have children to appreciate the truth of those two paragraphs. You need only be someone who has been through great stress at one point or another. Which is to say, all of us.

If you read this little blog with any regularity, you've seen me wax forlorn over the chaos that is my life. I find myself running hither and yon from dawn to dusk, and I'm not even exactly sure where "yon" is, or why I'm supposed to run there. But I do.

Yet in all of my complaining, never does it escape me that I love this life. I absolutely love it. While there are many people who I admire greatly, I would not trade my existence for anyone else's in the world.

I constantly worry about my children. I constantly complain about their inability to clean up a mess. I constantly fret over the ways in which I fall short as a husband and father.

And it's wonderful. Every minute of it.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I think there's a certain nobility in what we as human beings do every day in support of ourselves and those we love. We sacrifice our time and energy for goals we like to believe are bigger than us, and we are better creatures for having done so.

Occasionally I find myself longing for the days when the kids are grown and things finally slow down. But I know for certain I'll miss this rat race.

So lately I've reveled in the bedlam. And so should you.

Whether you recognize it or not, my friend, these are your finest days. Embrace them. Learn from them. Grow in them.

Because when it's all said and done, these are the times that will define who you were and what you stood for. And if you're playing your cards right, you should be pretty pleased with the outcome.

These, believe it or not, are your finest days

If you don't mind, I'd like for you to read a quote I've lifted from a novel called "Water for Elephants." It's a tad long, but it sets the stage for my ramblings today, and you may even find it as inspirational as I do:

Those were the salad days, the halcyon years! The sleepless nights, the wailing babies; the days the interior of the house looked like it had been hit by a hurricane; the times I had five kids, a chimpanzee, and a wife in bed with fever. Even when the fourth glass of milk got spilled in a single night, or the shrill screeching threatened to split my skull, or when I was bailing out some son or other...from a minor predicament at the police station, they were good years, grand years.

But it all zipped by. One minute Marlena and I were in it up to our eyeballs, and next thing we knew the kids were borrowing the car and fleeing the coop for college. And now, here I am. In my nineties and all alone.

You don't have to have children to appreciate the truth of those two paragraphs. You need only be someone who has been through great stress at one point or another. Which is to say, all of us.

If you read this little blog with any regularity, you've seen me wax forlorn over the chaos that is my life. I find myself running hither and yon from dawn to dusk, and I'm not even exactly sure where "yon" is, or why I'm supposed to run there. But I do.

Yet in all of my complaining, never does it escape me that I love this life. I absolutely love it. While there are many people whom I admire greatly, I would not trade my existence for anyone else's in the world.

I constantly worry about my children. I constantly complain about their inability to clean up a mess. I constantly fret over the ways in which I fall short as a husband and father.

And it's wonderful. Every minute of it.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I think there's a certain nobility in what we as human beings do every day in support of ourselves and those we love. We sacrifice our time and energy for goals we like to believe are bigger than us, and we are better creatures for having done so.

Occasionally I find myself longing for the days when the kids are grown and things finally slow down. But I know for certain I'll miss this rat race.

So lately I've reveled in the bedlam. And so should you.

Whether you recognize it or not, my friend, these are your finest days. Embrace them. Learn from them. Grow in them.

Because when it's all said and done, these are the times that will define who you were and what you stood for. And if you're playing your cards right, you should be pretty pleased with the outcome.