Australia 8

Emory's teacher asked him to focus, in the daily journal he's keeping as his homework, on what is most different. I thought that merited a post here, as well.

In truth, the most striking thing, difference-wise, is the lack of difference. Here we are on the opposite side of the globe, hanging out in a culturally western, English speaking country. That's weird. Though I suppose the US and Canada are a good distance from the seat of the English language, too. We're all operating in a cultural world fundamentally shaped by European colonialism.

Anyway, so the different stuff. One of the most striking differences is the driving on the left, which I've mentioned a couple of times. I'm not doing it at all. David is doing all the driving. I feel wimpy about this, but I'm a nervous, uncomfortable driver in unfamiliar territory even without the major shift. I'm certain I'd be, at best, miserable and at worst, incredibly dangerous. The thing that gets him (and even more would get me) are the knee-jerk reactions. It's not that hard to drive on the opposite side and pay close attention and remember to turn into the correct lane and so on, what's really hard is to keep the difference in mind when you're reacting quickly to something surprising. We had some mini crisis in the car on the way over here (trunk open or some such thing) and David pulled across an empty lane of traffic to pull over on the right hand side because he was distracted. It was no big deal because there was no traffic, but it's exactly that kind of thing that freaks me out.

The next big, daily difference is metric weights and measures. This is actually very neat and I'm enjoying trying to somewhat internalize the metric units. It's so much nicer and more orderly. The small c conservatism of the US in hanging onto the English system (while even the English now use primarily the metric system) is a pet peeve of mine. Measuring veggies in grams is easy, trying to convert the temperature to C is harder.

Another big difference is the topsy-turvy seasons and north/south temperature gradations. We're here in late February and it's effectively late August. When you head south in Australia, the weather generally gets cooler and more temperate.

The final difference I want to note is the money. This would seem to be no big deal. The Australian dollar is pretty close in value to the US dollar, they use cents, etc. The reality is that I have a hard time remembering which coin is which and look like a big goob as I'm pawing around trying for correct change. Another thing they have that I wish the US had are one and two dollar coins in common use and NO DAMN PENNIES!

On Mini-Carts and Other Annoyances

I often grocery shop around 4pm. Why I time my shopping, as a stay-at-home-mom with a flexible schedule, to coincide with the first wave of on-the-way-home-from-work shoppers and my children’s’ crabbiest, most difficult time of day (due to hunger and fatigue) is a mystery, but I unfailingly do. We generally shop at a good-sized, but still smaller than a conventional grocery store, co-op. This means narrow aisles and an abundance of toddler-level bulk food bins. The crowning glory among co-op food acquisition nuisances is the child-sized carts, though. I’m sure there are children out there who helpfully and sedately push the cart along, putting only approved-of objects in the cart. These are not my two or four-year-old.

Imagine, if you will, a co-op crowded with late afternoon shoppers. My wired, grumpy offspring are each in possession of a child-sized cart – cleverly designed with a bar at just the right height to painfully clip an adult’s heels if not handled properly. My two-year-old daughter selects tasty goods and drops them into her basket from height – usually easily-bruised fruit that I do not wish to purchase. My four-year-old son careens rapidly and enthusiastically ahead of us, intending to maintain firm control over his cart and succeeding an admirable, but unfortunately still dangerous and annoying to other shoppers, 90% of the time. The, counter-intuitively, less difficult scenario is when there is only one little cart available. The pain of the conflict over sharing it is more than compensated for by the relief of only having to ride herd over one ankle-eating projectile.

I am convinced that the co-op believes they are providing a service to parents in these mini-carts. What possible motivation would they have for providing them if not? And I do have to admit that I have occasionally used the “store with the little carts” line in bolstering my case for getting shopping resistant kids out of the house. I am certain, despite this, that my life would be simpler without the carts. I feel the same way about the gigantic, heavy, unmaneuverable car carts at the mainstream grocery stores. Thank heaven they are nearly never available. Not only are they hard to push and steer, but, once the initial moment of excitement is over, they are not interesting for the kids to ride in. Then I have bored kids that I can’t see or interact with, because the view into the cab of the car is minimal. What do bored, unsupervised children do in a grocery store? They take things off shelves, rip them open and begin to eat them, that’s what. At least that’s what my kids have been known to do. If your children are above this sort of thing, I don’t want to hear about it. Either they destroy and or eat the merchandise or they perform death-defying acrobatic stunts in the cab of the car. I’m not much bothered by these, but they do give my fellow shoppers and, especially, store employees collective apoplexy.

One other well-intentioned but disastrously unhelpful service to parents comes to mind – the medical clinic toy area. Now, I’m no germophobe. You’re talking to a woman who cheerfully allows her infants to crawl on airport floors (it’s really not so bad if you avoid thinking too hard about it). But really, a sick child toy swap? Where, when and why, even for a moment to someone who never considered having children, did this seem like a good idea? Yet you see it all the time. Gee, poor Jack has such a horrible cough that I’m bringing him in to be swabbed for pertussis. Little Olivia has what will shortly be diagnosed as Fifths disease. Wouldn’t it be a lovely idea if we provided a means for them to swap germs, even if they’re not actually in the clinic that the same time? There is a laundry list of reasons I avoid unnecessary clinic visits, and this is certainly among them.

It’s difficult to explain some of this stuff. After all, one can’t argue that parents don’t rule the world. Most adults do, at some point, reproduce, and the ruling elite wear their children like merit badges. It does seem that perhaps people rarely put on a true parenting hat when making decisions in a professional setting. Or, perhaps more likely, this lens of perception brought on by spending all day every day with the under six set just fades with the era. Maybe the day will come when I cheerfully offer one-year-olds hard candy and wonder why those terrible parents at the next table don’t make their toddler sit quietly and eat her dinner. I hope not, though. I’d like to think that the things I’m learning now have a little value and will stick with me. We’ll see.

Career Advancement in the Field of Motherhood

I am a career mommy. I’m revisiting blogging as I contemplate adding another child to our family.

This post is a little on the overwrought, serious end of the spectrum, but I wanted to delve into this a little before I tell you my kids say the darndest things stories.

I think of myself as a career mommy for several reasons. The biggest of these is that this is the job I’ve always wanted and planned on and for. I have hobbies outside mothering, but I’m happy and comfortable with the fact that much of what I read, think and write about is related to being a parent. I think this is similar to many other dedicated professionals who are engrossed in their fields. I also don’t have any plans to leave the field in the near future. In fact, I view the decision of what to do after my children no longer require full-time care with trepidation. Although I tentatively plan on four children (a number some people already consider excessively large), early retirement is inevitable.

I always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. Granted, as a child and teen, I imagined that I would have a fabulous professional career before I embarked on this second domestic one. I was never very sure, though, what that career would be and, I suspect not at all coincidentally, it never materialized.

This truly is my dream job. It lacks a fabulous salary and (most) people are not impressed at cocktail parties, but it’s the thing I always imagined and hoped to be doing with my life and it has turned out to be even more fulfilling, challenging and interesting than I anticipated. It’s also much harder, but, in a sense, that difficulty validates the worth of the work I do. If it were easy, would I feel so sure that what I’m doing is essential and valuable? I doubt it.

I have to acknowledge the degree of luck involved in my being in this position. I did not select my spouse for his ability and desire to support a family on a single income (though I did firmly establish that he wanted children). His professional and academic status figured into my attraction to him, but I appreciated it primarily as something that spoke well of his intelligence and work ethic and granted social status. On one hand, given my desire to be a stay home with children, this seems bizarre. On the other, I believe that my refusal to be single-minded and business-like in the pursuit of a life partner was a major contributor to my having ended up with such a good one (but that’s a separate topic).

My major complaint about this line of work is the lack of satisfying professional evaluation. In short, no one tells me I’m doing a good job. Learning to get by with mostly intrinsic validation is a struggle, but one that I think is worthwhile and dovetails nicely with my attempts to raise my children to be internally motivated.

I told a friend over a glass of wine a few weeks ago that in deciding to have another child I was giving myself a promotion. I said it lightly, but the aptness of the metaphor keeps striking me. We are planning on having a third child in a year or so and my feelings about this are difficult to explain. Of course I know that this will complicate my life and increase my workload. I see the symmetry in our current family of four. My children are no longer babies and become easier (in some ways) to live with all the time. But I’m not done. These amazing, fascinating, aggravating, beautiful children are my greatest work; I relish this work and am up for more.