Any Shiny Thing - Life after 50
Midlife Fiction
That’s a saying I invented recently. It means no matter what you’re going through, the minutes keep passing, and eventually you’ll be done and things will get better. I know I said I couldn’t post, and really, I’m racing. I have to run. Won’t be able to answer your comments, if any – sorry! – but just this: our first week in Indiana was wonderful. Lots of beautiful countryside (see above) and loving family. Our second week, in Missouri (misery?) is the opposite. See you next Friday.
UPDATE: Hi all, I think I have my answer, so please ignore this post. Thanks!
Here was the original question if you’re interested:
My traffic monitoring service tells me my blog is waaayyyyy sloooooowwwwwww. (They mean the loading speed, smarty pants.) If true, I’ll convert it to WordPress.org, which is not how I want to spend my summer. But I’ll do it if it keeps you, my reader, from getting frustrated. So that’s my question: when you click on the link in your email inbox, does my blog load slowly? Either leave a comment, or send me an email or, if it’s loading just fine for you, click the LIKE button. Thanks so much. Happy Sunday.
Me with my granddaughter.
I’ve started babysitting again. My book and my grandson are infants, and I’m nurturing them both in the same crazy year. So while I plan for a book signing at my home on Saturday, I have to lean on my sweet, hard-working hubby to handle the logistics. And while I have my hands full babysitting my grandson and, once a week, his sister too, at least I get to go home. My son and daughter-in-law are in the heat of it. I tell them they’re young. These are the years they’re like a nuclear reactor; they’re vibrant and powerful and everything feeds off them!
Bill with our grandson
I know I’m a big help, but I couldn’t do it without Bill. He’s my support team. Not only does he fix our dinners every night, run errands for Mom, and do all the home stuff, but he was prepared to come over every day for a couple of hours, as he did in spring of 2011 with our granddaughter. This time around, I suggested he take Tuesday and Thursday off. I don’t want to burn him out, but also, I feel less guilty because on those days he ends up with a pretty big honey-do list!
I told him to hang in there – next year will be the year I start to age gracefully! My kids know this is the toughest year, at least until the babies turn into teenagers. My kids both work fulltime as teachers, and with two children under two years old, they’re grateful for the help.
I’m typing this right now as my grandson watches my fingers. We’re sitting on the carpet together. He has a bunch of mobiles dangling overhead, his feet can kick me, and I reach over every few seconds to pat his belly and coo at him.
Our daughter-in-law with the newborn
I also feel a bit guilty falling in love with him, because my first love was his sister. However, she’s moved on. She loves being at her daycare with other kids to play with. When she first started going there she wasn’t yet walking and was frustrated that the other kids could run away from her, but now she plays on the swings and the sandbox and runs everywhere rather than walking.
Wow. He’s waking up from his nap – thirty minutes, just like the first one. What happened to the two-hour one he was supposed to take this morning? Or even the hour? Stay-at-home-moms, I feel ya!
My mother with her great-grandson
But it’s a dream for me. I never got to be a SAHM. I went back to work when my son was one month old! Horrific, but thank God my Mom was able to babysit those first six months. I had no choice. I was the primary breadwinner. So staying home now is like revisiting those days, one generation removed. I don’t have to dress up or be ready for a boss – my little boss doesn’t care what I look like. My favorite time is in the middle of the day, sitting in the rocker in his room while he naps, listening to him breathe. The neighborhood is quiet, and I’m all alone in this daytime world of mothers and babies, snoozing within the walls of our houses.
Our son with our granddaughter
Sometimes it floors me, that my son is a grown man and I’m a grandma. Beautiful and weird at the same time.
Today I’ve got a Skype conference in the afternoon. I’ll probably have the baby on my shoulder. That’s where he’s quietest. Such a snugglebug. It’s not with a client, it’s with people who I’m helping develop a curriculum for a writers’ organization I belong to. I told them next year I’d be there physically to teach or whatever they need, but this year, it’ll have to be Skype or Saturdays.
My dad used to say family is everything. While I don’t believe family is defined by blood, I surely do agree with him. We need each other. Life is hard. We’re in it together.
My mother turns 87 next week, and in her honor I want to share a story I wrote fifteen years ago.
Mom still can’t eat raisins.
Raisins, and whatever else the local Catholic church could spare, kept Mom and her seven siblings from starvation on a windswept North Dakota farm. [Read more…]
For women of a certain age, this is a seismic shift. As girls, it was our job to clean the toilets while our brothers mowed the lawns. We ironed shirts while they – well, we ironed shirts. Then those Boomer men grew up. Now they’re at or near retirement age, and there’s a change afoot. Have you noticed?
Boomer men are turning domestic.
They cook! Many have their own specialties, and you don’t want to get in the way when they’re in the kitchen. Bill makes spaghetti just like his mom used to. Or salmon with honey-mustard marinade. Or pulled pork, simmered in beer all day in the crock pot. This new breed of husband goes to the grocery store. My friend who is still working says she hasn’t been for a year, ever since her husband retired.
They clean! My sister-in-law is learning to relax and let my brother, who just retired, clean the house. He feels that it’s his job now. He also shops, cooks and runs errands. Both of them are loving it. (Maybe they’ve discovered what some of my friends tell me: a houseworking hubby stirs our libido. Even without an apron.)
They negotiate chores! In my retirement community, the division of labor between couples seems logical for the generation that came of age with Women’s Lib, Gloria Steinem, and the Equal Rights Amendment. My friends say they tend to divvy up chores based on who’s good at what, and who hates a job less.
We joke about it, us girls. The men have their own way of doing things. Like in my case, when Bill mops the kitchen floor, the corners remain kind of cruddy, but do you think I’m complaining? Helllll no. I tell him over and over again how much I appreciate him. That comes with being an old broad. You don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Besides, I can always sneak over with a wet rag and fix things. He’ll never know. His eyesight isn’t that good.
Kids these days, those impressive young men of Gen X and Y, share more of the housework and child-rearing than did their fathers, but I want to give the old dudes credit. I think our generation, the Baby Boomers, broke ground on this. We turned our backs on tradition. So now when I see Bill mopping the floor, I feel love and gratitude but also a sense of history being made. We have come a long way, baby.
I like money. I mean, who doesn’t? So why is it so hard for me to accept it from people to whom I’m giving a skill or benefit?
Mika Brzezinsky wrote about this in Knowing Your Value: Women, Money and Getting What You’re Worth. Women are good at giving, but not so good at taking. That’s beautiful, and the world needs more of it, but sometimes we stand in our own way. Mika careened from not asking her bosses for adequate pay, to asking inappropriately (acting like a man would, since that’s who modeled the intervention for her), to asking in a way that was true to her comfort level. The last time, when she asked authentically, it happened.
Part of my problem is that I am starting a new business, so my students were my guinea pigs. I didn’t feel it was right to charge them for something that wasn’t particularly polished, but now it’s a valuable product, so I had to break the news.
I felt like a jerk, but I did it, and they were beautiful!
“Of course; your classes are worth it!” was the general sentiment. I am so relieved, but I still feel kind of clunky. To be honest, I dread when my book is published and I have to take money for that. Not the money part. The take part.
I never had any problem negotiating in a corporate setting, because for some reason that seems impersonal. My problem is asking individuals to open their very own wallet and share their personal cash with me.
Some of it is my upbringing: very Catholic. We were taught to give and give and give until it hurts. And then give some more. From my North Dakota German heritage I got the idea that we only give, never take. And then there’s this timeworn maxim: it’s better to give than receive. Right?
My parents taught me to give. My mother worshiped sacrifice and we kids were indoctrinated. No surprise I supported two jobless husbands. When I met Prospective Husband Number Three, I took him to be interviewed by my therapist. Seriously – I didn’t trust my own judgment. After thirty minutes, Dr. N looked at me and said, “He’s got a job. What the hell do you see in him?”
But I digress. Women still earn less than men, and one reason is because they don’t ask, let alone negotiate.
Here’s a surprise: the younger generations are no better.
When interviewed about their book, Ask for It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want, authors Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever say this:
A lot of the younger women we talked to…believe that they’re just as assertive about what they want as their male peers. Unfortunately, this is not true. Younger women may assume that things have changed far more than they have, but our studies show that even among men and women in their 20s and early 30s, men are much more likely to initiate negotiations than women.
I’m going to take a stab here and say it’s probably about two things: one, our indoctrination as caregivers and nurturers, and two, the lack of role models. I guess that was redundant.
The situation perpetuates itself.
In the future I’m going to read up on and study more about this topic for my own benefit, yours, and that of my daughters and granddaughters. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with making a sacrifice for those you love, but it can’t be all you, all the time. The act of taking cash from your peers may feel creepy, but giving away your work feels worse.
Have you experienced this inability to ask for what you’re worth? Did you figure out a way to overcome it? What’s your story?
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