Joyfully At Home: Chapter 2 - Part One

We've entered the third stage of holiday events in our house - Sick Toddler Time!  My little guy was a bit off yesterday.  Last night, my son partially awoke about once every 45-60 minutes, let out random wails for around 30 seconds, and fell back asleep before I could make it from our bedroom to his nursery across the hall.  By morning, I was bleary-eyed with lack of sleep when I fished my son out of his crib and realized he was running a temperature. 

I hate it when he's sick - but he did fine today.  He takes medication by mouth pretty well and he would take Tylenol after a few cursory whines.  Spawn would let me know when he was ready to go back to bed by pointing towards the steps or signing "Sleep".   The rest of the time he wanted to sit on my lap and watch "Sesame Street".  After a while, I couldn't handle another sketch about emotional regulation so I pulled an ace that I had reserved a few weeks before.  My husband had been scanning the offerings on Netflix and a documentary called "Tigers of Scotland" appeared.  The documentary was about the remnant wildcat population of Scotland that are a separate species than domesticated cats.   That was interesting to me - but far more importantly - my son loves cats.   Love might be too weak of a term.  Spawn ADORES cats.   If he sees one, he says "Hi, cat!" or "Miaow-Miaow!" at them.  That bought me 60 minutes of a happy toddler who cuddled on my lap while calling out "Miaow-miaow! Miaow-miaow!" every time a domestic cat, feral cat,  wildcat, lynx or bobcat appeared on the screen.  (Previously, he has meowed at tigers at the local zoo.  I'm enjoying the irony that his survivability is now less than it was as a newborn for large cats.) 

Heck, I wondered if the camera crew that spent six weeks looking for a wildcat to film only to get some less-than-thrilling footage of a mouse eating and a barn owl flying by just needed to add a cat-obsessed toddler to their crew.  I feel like Spawn's unbridled adoration would have drawn wildcats to wander around outside the blind. :-)

Jasmine (Baucham) Holmes has written two articles about her regrets of being a stay-at-home daughter as well as the awkwardness of rereading the book she wrote at age 19.   I have a great deal of compassion for her - but especially in having to hear the 'wisdom' she wrote when she was barely out of childhood.   Honestly, I don't think she was any more idealistic or dogmatic than so many young people on the brink of adulthood; she simply had the unfortunate piece of luck to have her writings published by a now-defunct cultic system.

As an outsider, the voice of the cultic CP/QF belief system shouts loudest when authors like Ms. Baucham, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin or Sarah Mally discuss alleged life events that sound fishy:

I have heard so many conversations between young married women who are sighing, "I wish I knew a Titus 2 woman who could walk alongside me! I have so much to learn!"

They talked about how they were trained to have a career, but not run a home; how they could oversee a business merger, but couldn't manage dinner; how they could juggle nine tasks at once, as long as none of those tasks included the difficulties of child-rearing. (pg.33)

The first item that sat oddly with me is the fact that Ms. Baucham at age 19 had been involved in more than one conversation among young married women.  Granted I married at an older age, but when I was around a group of newlywed and single women, I didn't start with "Oh, my God!  Marriage is hard, amiright?  Who will ever teach me how to wife properly?"   No.  Just no.  We did commiserate occasionally on the quirks of our respective husbands - but that is as much about pride that the worst thing about your husband is a minor quirk instead of  being married to a monster.

The second paragraph reads as an creative interpretation of the CP/QF mythos surrounding what secular education is and how it strips away a woman's ability to run a home or raise a child.  After all, families are responsible for training their kids to keep a home, not post-secondary educational facilities.  Certain families are better at teaching how to keep a home, certainly, but that is a different issue than whether women should have careers. 

I want to meet a woman who is capable - and has - overseen a business merger but is unable to solve the intractable problem that is dinner.   A person who has navigated the hazard-ridden, unmapped river that is a business merger may be a horrible cook - but I suspect they would be fine at either hiring a cook, purchasing ready-to-eat meals or ordering take-out.   Likewise, I suspect that there are plenty of women executives who are fine cooks; they simply choose to delegate that task to someone who does it even better than they do.

I also want to meet someone who can smoothly juggle nine-tasks at once - but fails miserably as soon as one of the tasks involve children.   IMHO, most of the problems with child rearing is that small children require caregivers to juggle nine tasks at once while continuously changing the order of priority for the tasks.  In other words, sauteing onions for dinner goes instantly from the first task of importance to the third when you see your toddler balancing precariously on the back of the sofa.  (The second most important task is "Occupy toddler so they don't do that again".  :-) )   The capricious and never-ending needs of infants and toddlers are the reason that women around the world specialized in gathering foods, food preparation and making textiles.   Women can hunt, mine or blacksmith perfectly well - but those activities don't mix well with the curiosity of toddlers.

This next quote is adorably naive in a truly teenage girl way:

As I sit here typing today, working on my first book and babysitting a six-year-old, a three-year-old, and a two-year-old, I can only imagine the overwhelmed feeling that is sending many a new wife and mommy reeling. My youngest brother Micah  (a year old) will be up from nap soon, ready to eat. My three-year-old brother Asher is insatiably curious, and has me running outside every few minutes to answer his plainative knocks at the door. The two year old (Judah) will need a diaper change soon, and will probably have a smell that would send you running for the hills. Elijah is the oldest of the younger set, and he knows how to keep things in order. The only problem is, this little guy isn't exactly seen as an authority in his toddler brothers' lives.

So how am I not screaming my head off and running for cover? (pgs. 33-34)

Obviously, her response is that her parents trained her up right - which is what I would have responded at that age, too. 

The truth is that babysitting your four siblings in a household that contains two seasoned adults and her 15 year-old brother is nothing like being a young wife to a man who is starting his career while you are caring for your close-in-age preschool children.  It's not even in the same universe.  I know nothing of how long it took Voddie and Bridget Baucham to reach the point that he had a stable career and a consistent income - but the couple sensibly spaced their two biological children four years apart.  Since Jasmine is the eldest child, she may well have scant memories of any hard times the young family faced. 

The hardest part to foresee about having children before you do is the fact that your child is your responsibility.  I'm sure that teenage Jasmine could feed, play with, comfort, dress and handle the toileting needs of her young siblings - but that's the easy bit of parenting.  The weeds of parenting is making decision after decision after decision.   Deciding if the toddler is sick enough to need to go to the doctor - or will a doctor's visit simply exhaust a sick tot without speeding their recovery?  How will we afford the bill if we're a cost-sharing plan that doesn't cover non-catastrophic illnesses?  Should I start weaning my kid from their pacifier?  His doctor says yes, but his dentist says no.  My kid has refused to touch a vegetable in two weeks - should I be worried?

CP/QF leaders push young marriage and militant fertility - but different people are ready for marriage and parenthood at vastly different ages.  I've certainly known people who married in their early twenties, had a large family and did fine; I've also known people who married early, had a huge family and descended into the chaos of a dysfunctional marriage with kids who are barely hanging on.  My husband and I have been clear on one fact for a long time - we would have been terrible spouses in our early twenties.   We were too young and inexperienced.   We both needed time to learn additional lessons in patience, cooperation, tolerance and forbearance. 

My son and his medical struggles have taught me what I sometimes refer to as militant patience.   That's the patience that requires every bit of my strength to maintain because I want badly to have something I can fight against or do to promise a good outcome - but there is no enemy and is no magic bullet except time.  And so - patience that goes against every fiber of my being.  Militant patience.

Thirty-seven year old me does have one tip for 19-year old Jasmine, though.  Don't let the three-year old go outside without of an adult's line-of-sight, please.  I'm all in favor of free-ranging kids, but the kid needs to be old enough to not get hurt to due to impulsivity.  Three-year-olds have no decision-making skills other than "Let's try this!" - and that can end so badly in a safe area.