Unrealistic Expectations

I just finished that three-week intensive course on field methods which involved poison ivy exposure and several days of sweating without showers. The girls all went to their great-grandparents' house in Colorado Springs for a week while I camped at the field site. Cub stayed home with Papa, who worked from home for the first time so I could go be a sweaty (but kick-ass) mess. I couldn't do what I do without help from all of the incredible people in my life.

Even so, I have a very hard time getting things done. In fact, lots of things don't get done. I gave my final presentation yesterday. I was home at about noon. Since then, I have been trying to catch up on laundry, vacuuming, yard maintenance, general tidying and cleaning, and sleep. But there's a fallen limb in our back yard which has been sitting in the same place for months because Papa and I can't seem to find the simultaneous time and energy to hack it up with a hatchet.

During a regular semester, I fill my "off" days with laundry, cleaning, and appointments. Homeschooling get sprinkled in between switching loads or while we sit in the waiting room or while I'm technically doing my own homework, or as we share a meal. I need to get the kids to the dentist, but I keep forgetting to call the office, and when I do think about it, the thought of trying to wedge one more thing into the calendar is a little upsetting.

Saturdays are our leisure days. We go to the park or the zoo or the museum. Sometimes we stay home and play video games together. Sundays are filled with grocery shopping. We spend so much time grocery shopping.

And, next semester, it looks like I might be taking a 9am class on Tuesday and Thursday and an 8am class on Monday and Wednesday. Plus, I have an online class and I'm trying to get involved with an undergraduate research project.

People are always telling me they don't know how I do it. The truth is, I don't know either. It seems like I'm constantly having to cut corners and make sacrifices. And, once a season or so, I have a minor melt-down and cry a little bit about how much pressure I deal with and the sisyphean struggles of being a mom and a woman.

Despite the fact that we, as a society, are beginning to accept that not every man marries a woman and that not every woman becomes a mother or a homemaker, we are still judging ourselves and other women based on ridiculous "happy homemaker" metrics from the 50's like:

• The relative order or chaos of her home
• The deliciousness, creativity, and from-scratchness of her food
• The stylishness of her hair
• Her makeup skills and commitment to doing her makeup every day
• Her fashion sense
• Her kids (by any standard you can imagine)

I know because I do it, even though I know better. I know because I see other people doing it even though, if I asked them about it, I'm sure most would say it's wrong. And I know because I judge myself by these standards, in part because I assume others will. 

But you know what?

I can maintain my makeup and my fashion sense and cook from-scratch meals every day if I'm also on a tight schedule teaching my kids to be little angels and maintaining my cutting edge hair style and cleaning and organizing my house... AND going to school. Someday I'll have a career and I definitely won't be able to do it all then. We can't ask women (or anyone for that matter) to juggle this many obligations. 

If I were the president, or the first lady for that matter, I doubt I'd have to cook all my own meals and clean my house and somehow also be the main source of child care and the leader of the free world all while looking amazing. But the peanut gallery is always going to be there to judge me for not spending enough time with my kids, not keeping my house clean enough or my yard pretty enough if I have a career... and then judge me for being lazy and complacent and perpetuating gender stereotypes if I choose to be a stay-at-home mom.

So I think I need to take a step back and realize that I'm asking too much of myself. Maybe that's because society seems to ask too much of all women, but regardless, I can refuse to get caught up in it. The trouble is, I'm not sure I'm ever going to be okay with lowering my standards, even if I stop caring what other people think. But it's a start. 

In conclusion: Screw you, societal standards. My standards are already an impossible challenge for me to meet and I can't be bothered to care about yours too.  

Be Imperfect

My school is attempting to reintroduce a "Field Methods in Plant Ecology" course. It's a three-week intensive course that I am taking right now, and we all agree that there is far too much information to cram into just three weeks. I've learned a lot and had a lot of fun, but I've consistently felt like I couldn't keep up. It's an important class for anyone who wants to work in the field with their biology degree, so I suck it up and stick to it.

Last week, we spent Monday through Friday at a state park, running transects, laying quadrats, taking voucher specimens and soil samples, and recording data from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm with highs in the 90s. Because I live 45 minutes away from the field site, I chose to reserve a camp site and pitch a tent with a few of my (now much closer) friends who were also braving the heat for credits.

By day, my sun glasses were sliding down my nose in slicks of sweat. My awesome science nerd hat (with the brim that goes all... the way... around) was saving me from squinting and sun burn, but contributing to a pretty gross hair style by collecting sweat at the band. I waded in the river in my field clothes, which provided a chance to relax and a short period of relief via evaporative cooling. I accidentally came in contact with poison ivy while in the woods and had to use river mud for friction to hopefully wash away the oils and prevent urushiol-induced contact dermatitis (read: river mud exfoliating facials). After that, I started covering myself even more to prevent further exposure.

I got a bit of sun burn on my nose because I forgot to reapply sun screen. My forehead broke out where my hat pressed against it all day. On the last day, I chose which shirt to wear based on strength of stench.

By night, I filled out my field notebook by the light of a camp lantern, took hobo showers, and slept in a backpacking tent.

Come the end of the week, I felt pretty gross. But I learned something.

Obviously, I learned some awesome methods for sampling vegetation for study. I also learned that you really should do this stuff at the crack of dawn and then disappear into the air conditioning somewhere once the sun starts to beat down on your science-nerd hat. But I also learned something unexpected: being gross is important to me.

When I came home, I swore I was smelly. I hadn't shaved in a week. My hair had been rinsed but not washed for four days. Still, Papa thought I was amazing and insists I never smell bad, "Seriously. You're like magic." Coming home to him, seeing that he didn't mind the sweaty mess I had become, was reassuring, but more importantly, I had given myself permission to be that sweaty mess and it was okay.

You can't be perfectly preened all the time... or, if you can, you're not being nearly adventurous enough. So, if that's not an option, you're going to have to come to terms with giving zero shits what other people think about you.

This is not my first "fewer if any showers" adventure. I've been gross for good reasons many times before. In fact, I've taken two other classes of this type. I guess I like to earn credits for sweating. I'm familiar with this form of (what I would call) therapy. I just never thought of it as therapeutic before this. Maybe we all need river mud facials once in a while.    

I Want to Talk About Privilege

Privilege is defined as a right or advantage gained by birth, social position, effort, or concession. We call it a privilege when we let our kids pick what we have for dinner because they did well on their homework or when an older sibling is allowed to explore the neighborhood alone while a younger sibling is not. 

Privilege isn't always fair. Sometimes the sixteen-year-old gets to drive the car even though she is far less responsible than her thirteen-year-old sister, because driving is a privilege given to sixteen-year-olds with a certain amount of disregard for practicality, under the guise that "it's normal".

For that reason, and other reasons, privilege doesn't always make people happy. My three-year-old is pretty chafed about not being allowed in our back yard by himself. In his case, he just doesn't understand why the unequal distribution of privilege is reasonable. He keeps harassing the chickens, heedlessly wandering out the gate, and otherwise making questionable decisions when no one is looking. But what if I took privileges away from my children because another child lied about something my child did? What if I took privileges away because of a presupposition about children in general without ever giving my children a chance to prove themselves? 

Actually, I think all parents are guilty of that last one. We have to be. We put babies in cribs because, although our child hasn't yet become mobile, we know that children generally do.  We keep putting our toddler down for a nap because we're pretty sure kids need naps, even if we haven't tested that theory on this particular toddler. We limit screen time because studies show that less is best, even though "studies show" just means "generally, for most kids". 

This is important. we apply privilege to our kids based on generalized ideas because it is much easier than testing every theory individually on each child. In fact, I don't think we could do that if we tried. Generalizations are important for allocation of privilege in parenting. 

Problems arise when we start using those generalizations to judge the way other parents choose to allocate privilege for their children. As long as what they're doing isn't illegal, I think we need to consider that maybe the parent knows best. For example: My niece gets more screen time than my kids. None of my kids have ever shown a particular inclination to learn from electronic devices or shows. My niece, on the other hand, is three years old and trying to teach herself to spell and read with an app on a tablet. 

So far, you're with me because this doesn't make you uncomfortable. 

So let's talk about racial privilege. Remember, a privilege is a right or advantage gained by birth, social position, effort, or concession. Up to now, we've been talking about privileges bestowed upon our children by concession (on our part) or effort (on theirs). Racial privilege is decided at birth. 

If you needed to shop for an educational children's book, would you have trouble finding one with a central character who shares your ethnicity? "Once Upon A Potty", probably the most popular potty training book aimed at toddlers, is available in two variations: White boy and white girl.

If you had neighbors of a different race and there was a dispute, how concerned would you be that they might just call authorities? My kids used to play with our neighbor's young relatives every time they would visit. Then, we had an incident that involved a young boy kissing one of our daughters and we told his parents. Now, the neighbors hardly talk to us. We are white and our neighbors are black. I worry that we unknowingly and unintentionally threatened them.

Do you ever worry that if you make a choice that goes against the grain or results in a mistake, it will be chalked up to your ethnicity? I have this problem with gender privilege. I am frequently concerned that if I appear soft, disorganized, too mean, too nice, or too caring it will be brushed off as part of my femininity and not attributed to me as a person.

With recent events... shootings and revolts... I think this is an incredibly important topic, even if it makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Privilege doesn't affect all people of a given race equally, and not all people are guilty of perpetuating it. But the fact remains, it is easier to grow up white in America because there is always a place for you. There is always a doll that looks like you, a hair product that works for you, a book that relates to you, a teacher who gets you. And it's easier to be a white adult in America because people don't make nearly as many negative assumptions about you. If you want to go to that "ethnic hair products" place because you like their dye selection, you might feel a little out of place, but they will still help you find what you're looking for without tailing you to make sure you don't steal anything. This is what people mean when they talk about white privilege.  

Some people are uncomfortable talking about this with their children. Some would say we should avoid talking about it with our children because we don't want to pass this social problem down to the next generation. I say that's all the more reason to tell them. 

We teach our children about all kinds of things we never want to happen to or around them. We tell them about the dangers of drugs and alcohol and the consequences of irresponsible sex and other behaviors. If we didn't tell them about these boogeymen, they wouldn't just go away. The same is true with racial privilege. I'm going to tell my kids about privilege so I can arm them against contributing to, or even simply ignoring the problem. I hope they see a time when racial privilege doesn't exist, but if that never happens, I hope they are at least aware that they have it, so they can use it to fight the good fight.