Aug
30
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Aug
23
2010
Aug
23
2010
After years of making our back yard available for neighborhood cats to do their business, one of them finally left a token of appreciation. I went to take the trash to the container and, right smack in front of the back door, I found a gift: a dead frog with its head ripped off. Whoever said cats had no home training? Oh, I guess I did.
Aug
22
2010
Aug
21
2010
In recent months there’s been a brouhaha surrounding the so-called plight of single black women, arguably spearheaded by Steve Harvey’s best-selling Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man and brought into prominence on the internet by Nightline’s controversial “Why Are Black Women Single” and Helena Andrews’s newly-released Bitch Is the New Black. I’ve read everything from scary statistics to scary solutions and thought I’d offer my input on the topic: single (black) women, don’t despair because relationships and the family that they often engender are not always what they’re cracked up to be.
I love having a husband and children. To have a partner who supports and respects you, who brings out the best in you while reminding you, from time to time, that you’re not perfect, and someone with whom you can laugh often is what a lot of us women – and men – dream of. To discover the divinity of unconditional love that comes with children is a gift I would bestow upon everyone. To be the one person a young child comes to for comfort when she’s sick or scared or just wants to cuddle is validation that you’re doing something right.
However, marriage and motherhood come with a downside so steep I sometimes long for the advantages I had when I was single. Below are the five most important things I traded when I lost my single status.
1. Uninterrupted sleep. At least my kids don’t sleep through the night. When one wakes up for a drink of water, you wake up to give it to her. When you realize that the body lying next to you is not your partner, you have to get up and put said body (sometimes kicking and screaming) back in its own bed and sit there until it falls asleep. I’m a light sleeper so when my husband breathes too loud or, heaven forbid, snores, I’m wide awake staring at the ceiling. He pulls the comforter off me and rolls it around his heavy body so that I wake up … cold. When all this happens as often as it does in our home, you’re exhausted, and you still have to get up at 6:45 the next morning and drop the one child off at school and give your undivided attention, all day, to the one who’s at home. They don’t understand, nor do they care, that Mama’s tired. They want Mama to take them to the playground or color or play with their dolls. That’s not to imply that single women always get their eight hours a night. The difference is that the latter is usually by choice. You stay up late to polish that presentation that might get you that promotion. You were with your girls until 3:00 am talking and laughing and having a good time. You wanted to watch the end of the late movie or you were on FaceBook way too late.
2. The right to be sick. When I was growing up, I heard my mother say that with young children you can’t even be sick. This is one of the hardest parts of parenthood. Whether you have the flu or a bad cold, when you’re sick, all you want to do is sleep, or at least lie on the couch and watch crappy TV. When you have a family, you have to keep going. The deal that my husband and I made when I left my job to work at home as a freelance writer and editor was that I would be the primary care giver. And it made sense. We depend primarily on his income, so he can’t up and leave work when the kids are sick. As his parents live over an hour away and as my parents live in America, when I’m sick I still have to go on. Lunches have to be made, milk has to be poured.
3. Time. My days are not fully my own although working from home has provided me with an enviable degree of control over my own schedule. However, having a family takes a good deal of that control away. Even before I had children, I couldn’t just not come home after work. If at the last minute I wanted to have drinks with my colleagues after work, I had to let my husband know. I always had to work with his schedule, and vice versa. It’s not just my week-end anymore. If there’s something I want to do in the evening, personal or professional, I need to make sure my husband’s going to be home on time and vice-versa. There are no more spontaneous road trips to be had. Dinner has to be done by 6:00 in order to get the kids in bed by 7:30. Now my oldest has her play-dates and sports activities and so forth, and who gets to cart her around? And on whose time? Gone are the days when I could roll out of bed at 10:00 on a Sunday morning and pick up a doughnut and coffee on my way to spending the afternoon rollerblading around the streets of DC.
4. Individuality. This can be as banal as decorating your house or apartment exactly the way you want it with the furniture you picked out. It’s as mundane as leaving a stack of papers on the table before you go to work and finding it at the end of the day in the same place as where you left it. It’s dealing with your own messiness and watching what you want on TV every night or choosing the movie you want to see every time. It’s about doing what you want to do without consulting with anyone or worrying about the long-term affects it’s going to have on your relationship or your children.
5. Being responsible for myself. This sums up the previous four points and is this simple: when I get up in the morning, I’m automatically responsible for three people. Sure, my husband helps me with the morning routine, but even with help, I’m responsible for getting myself and two children dressed, fed and out the door on time. If we go to my in-laws’ for the weekend, I have to pack and unpack for three people. If we go out for pizza, I have to think about sweaters and pull-ups and menu choices for three people. When I buy groceries, I have to consider that my husband always wants to eat meat and that my children don’t want to eat veggies. I can never go anywhere empty-handed; I’m either carrying a child or my children’s stuff. The family car, i.e. my car, is always full of crumbs and my husband is always reminding me that it needs to be cleaned.
I wouldn’t want my life to be any different than it is right now, and when these frustrations take the forefront of my daily thoughts, I balance them with the joys that come with my lifestyle choice. Nor do I have too many regrets about how I’ve lived my life or the decisions I’ve made save this one: I wish that while I was single I could have embraced that period of my life. The one piece of advice I’d like to give to all you single (black) ladies is to be where you are. Take stock of what you have right now and spend as little time and energy as possible on the illusions created around relationships and families. They’re not always everything they’re cracked up to be.
Aug
20
2010
Aug
19
2010
Family vacations are supposed to be fun. We expect our kids to frolic in the swimming pool beneath endless blue skies and sweltering heat. For our part, we parents look forward to lounging next to the pool, one foot in the water, one hand holding open a sizzling romance or daring detective while the other balances a cocktail that’s sipped only under the above-mentioned circumstances. The hours traveling in the car on the way to said vacation should be merrily filled with round after round of “Row, row, row your boat” and challenging games of “I Spy”. We have limitless patience and our kids would never stoop to getting on our nerves.
Well, I’m here to testify that those vacations exist only in the imagination of the pre-vacation build-up. Our family vacation went wrong way before we step one foot on the hallowed French territory of our destination. Since the weather is atrocious in Holland, any Dutch person can attest to the fact that the single most important factor in determining where to vacation is weather. In fact, one of the first phrases I learned in Dutch was “we’re going to the sun”. Seeing as I’d just become a Dutch citizen, I decided take my family to the sun, too.
The Dordogne region of France promised sunny days and temperatures in the 80s. I was dragged in with thoughts of canoeing along the river and hiking in the mountains, that was, of course, when we’d grown tired of lounging by and frolicking in the pool. We saw one cloudless day in the 80s and, yes, you guessed it, it was when we were driving from Paris, a trip that should have taken us four hours but cost us around eight.
And speaking of driving, our darling little 3-year-old Paige ensured that any moment we spent in the car was anything but merry. She is a bundle of energy who’s old enough to equate car seat with “I’m not going to be able to move an inch for hours”. I would buckle her in and by the time I walked around to the passenger’s seat, she’d already asked me if she could have a piece of candy. “No, Paige,” I’d respond with a degree of patience any saint would envy. “Why not?” she’d ask. “Because it’s 8:00 am or because you haven’t eaten your lunch yet or simply because I said so.” Ten seconds later (and this isn’t an exaggeration)
“Mama?”
“Yes, Paige”.
“Can I have a piece of candy.”
“No, Paige”.
“Yes I can.”
“No, Paige.”
“But I haven’t had any candy.”
“Because it’s 8:00am (or because you haven’t eaten your lunch) (or simply because I said so)”.
“That’s not fair, Mama. I can have a piece of candy.”
No response.
“Mama.”
“Yes, Paige.”
“Can I have a piece of candy now?”
See above response. This would go on for hours with candy or with playing Angelina Ballerina on my iPhone. In the moments between hassling me, she’d turn her attention to Chloe, who, may I add, is the best traveling partner ever. Paige would take whatever Chloe had in her hand and then ask, “Can I play with that, too?”
By the time we reached the house we’d rented in the French sticks, I was worn out. Still, I was impressed with the size and condition of the house. It was very nice, but, my goodness, it wasn’t very conveniently located. If we wanted to buy a croissant, we had to drive for 10 kilometers. We had a pool right in front of the house, but the temperature did not rise above the upper 60s. So much for swimming.
Eating croissants was, for me, the highlight of French cuisine. I had no idea that the Dordogne was duck territory. On every in every restaurant we went to there was duck, prepared in various ways I admit, but duck is duck and I can’t stand duck. My husband was in hog heaven…duck heaven, that is…because he could eat foie gras (duck liver) till his heart’s content. I, on the other hand, ate more than my fair share of quiche Lorraine and and croque monsieurs, the French version of a grilled cheese sandwich. Chloe and Paige didn’t fare much better. I’m sure they never want to see any part of a hamburger (served rare) again.
We did manage to do a lot of sightseeing, which was fun. The highlight of our stay in the Dordogne was our visit to Josephine Baker’s Chateau des Milandes. It was breathtaking. It was so well done. One room was filled with paraphernalia from her long career as an entertainer. Of course the infamous banana belt was on display. I never knew how encompassing her career was nor how well received she’d been in Paris, to tell the truth, until seeing old photos of the billboards and posters of her performances.
Another room boasted her love of haute couture. The woman had style. I was wowed by the “military room”, where her medals were displayed. She aided the Resistance by transporting secret documents and fugitives, hidden in the props used for her shows. She’d marched on Washington in 1963 and was very outspoken against the injustices black people in America were suffering. In an effort to prove to the world that people of all races, ethnicities and nationalities could live together harmoniously, she went on to adopt thirteen children of all races, ethnicities and nationalities. And she was a philanthropist. She brought electricity to the village of Castelnaud-la-Chapelle and built an amusement park on the premises.
Chloe was impressed by Ms. Baker’s persona and informed me that Baker was as brown as me. Paige was impressed by the fact that Baker was dead. In the car:
“Mama?”
“Yes, Paige.”
“Is Josephine Baker dead?” (We were impressed that she could say the name perfectly.)
“Yes, baby.”
“Why is she dead?”
“Well, because she died.”
“How did she die?”
“Well, her brain started bleeding.”
“Why?’
“It just did.”
“Mama. Who else is dead?”
This time Chloe, in all her 6-year-old wisdom, answered, “Michael Jackson is dead, too.”
“How did Michael Jackson die?”
“His heart stopped beating.”
“Why?”
No response.
“Mama?”
“Yes, baby.”
“Are Michael Jackson’s eyes open?”
“I suppose they’re closed.”
“Mama? If you’re dead, can you stand up?”
“No, baby.”
“Why not?”
No response.
“Papa?”
“Yes, Paige.”
“I want to be dead, too.”
I swear, the only time during the entire vacation that Paige didn’t talk was when we went inside a cathedral. As soon as we stepped one foot inside, she became quiet and calm. Hmmmm. As soon as we exited, she asked, “When are we going to church, Mama?”
In the midst of all this fun, Chloe informed my husband that her head was itching and had been itching for a while. Come to find out, she had a head full of lice. Yes, lice. Now, if you’re a black woman reading this, you’ll understand why I was indignant. When I was growing up, black wisdom dictated that we didn’t get lice. I didn’t realize I’d held on to the racist idea that only white people got lice because of their greasy hair (Sorry white people reading this. This is what I learned and, shame on me, never questioned.) I wanted to tell my husband that she must’ve gotten from his side of the family, but I refrained. I would soon discover that lice actually prefer clean hair and that it’s not a racial issue at all.
As soon as one child in school gets them (the source of Chloe’s), there’s an outbreak. They’re spread easiest from direct contact, you know, the contact that comes from a little sister climbing in big sister’s bed in the middle of the night and cuddling up next to big sister’s head. When we got home, we found out that Paige had them, too. And, since Paige had woken up one night and cuddled up next to me in my bed, I got them. So, every night, three of us are delousing, which means, we have to comb through this hair,
with a tiny metal comb with tiny metal teeth. How is it possible that the only one in the family who doesn’t get lice is the one with a big bald spot on top and short, thinning hair, which is the easiest type to deal with?
The most memorable part of this year’s summer vacation is that the four of us were together. For two weeks our kids had our undivided attention 24/7. We got to know each other a bit better, and, despite the inconveniences, we had lots of laughs together. Ultimately, that’s why we decided to get away for a while.
That said, I think next summer we’ll brave rainy Holland. We can also get some quality time together at home, right?
Aug
17
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Aug
10
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Aug
9
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Aug
8
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Aug
6
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Aug
5
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Aug
4
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Aug
3
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Aug
2
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Aug
1
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Jul
30
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Jul
29
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Jul
23
2010
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Simone Branson © 2009 - black and (A)broad | Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS)
