Understanding each other

I don't think I ever blogged about one of the biggest moments in my role as a stay-at-home mom. Last year when we first moved into the neighborhood and Tom first met Drew and Hoa, he asked what Hoa did for a living and she said that she's a stay at home mom, "the harder job", she joked (but meant!). Tom came home, told me about it, and said, "I'm not so sure I agree with that."

Those 8 words sent me into a few weeks of deep questioning of Tom's appreciation of what I do. I know there was the appreciation in the sense of, "I wouldn't want to do what you're doing." He expressed that when Tobey was born and he said he was somewhat relieved to be able to go back to work. But his comment made me doubt his understanding of what I do as a difficult job, a job that takes multitasking, a lot of thought, a lot of patience. We talked it out back then, agreeing that sure, my job might not be "intellectual" in the same way as some professional jobs like engineering problem solving, but it has its own problem solving and plenty of emotional difficulty, ranging from dealing with the monotonous and now, dealing with the defiant. We talked it out and I felt a little better. At the time.

But then a year later, I still wondered.

And so I brought up the difficult topic over our Valentine's dinner. I usually don't bring up "serious" topics on our dates, because I like to enjoy them, not end up arguing or crying (unless the crying is for a good romantic comedy!).

To that question of "Do you think my job is hard?" I have yet to hear a quick answered without hesitation, "Yes, what you do is hard." Last year it was an expression of doubt, this year it was a thought through diplomatic yet not yielding answer. "Day to day your job is probably harder. But it has potential to be more rewarding." Good mercy, I thought, why can't he just admit that my job is hard? How come this topic has to be such a struggle?

And I wondered that maybe he doesn't really know how my job is hard.

In a way, Tom is right. We wouldn't want to get into a "my job is harder" kind of competition. And while I've done the engineering and know how it's difficult and how it's not, I haven't been in his shoes or experienced his sleepless nights as far as the pressures of providing for the family, which was his point. Tom can't possibly 100% identify with what I go through and vice versa. But does that mean we shouldn't try?

Last year when I shared with my mom friends my disappointment about Tom's answer, most of them had one thing to say: just have him take the kids for a whole day and he'll change his answer. I so wanted to have him do it but it also seemed a little vengeful. And in the back of my mind I wondered: What if he does well? What if he succeeds with flying colors? Then I'll never get the understanding that I really need to feel supported staying at home.

So I never did ask him to participate in my little experiment. Until this same Valentine's dinner. My suggestion of him trying to take the kids for whole days at a time was received as me wanting him to suffer (and therefore met with resistance). But really what I just want is for him to maybe understand a little more of why dinner is sometimes just frozen Trader Joe's food or why in a whole day I couldn't make one simple phone call to scope out a preschool. The experience was almost a way for me to feel that we're a team, that I'm not just the crazy one who ends the day tired and worn out.

In understanding each other, I have to admit that I am also looking for some affirmation for the difficulty of my "profession" as mom. When I taught high school, I almost didn't have to convince anyone about the difficulty of the job. I got my share of "I'd never want to do what you do" but more so, I got a lot of "I COULDN'T do what you do". I got sympathy but also respect. And while I had hard days, even hard years, in the end, I could still say I loved doing it with the affirmation sometimes being what gave me confidence. And while as a mom, I get lots of affirmation from my mom friends, it's really Tom's affirmation that I need the most with this "job" as mom. To Tom's great credit, he is sympathetic -- he takes over in a big way when he comes home from work and does a lot of house work in addition to the finances. Sometimes I do want my husband to "praise" my profession but I realized I didn't want an empty and automatic praise that the "well-trained" husbands might give. I need the affirmation from a husband that KNOWS how hard it is. When I shared my struggles with this issue with Pora, she said that Henry knows full well how hard it is taking care of Dan all day and so she never really struggles with that in their marriage. In a way, I want that (not Dan, the understanding!).

Small comments like last night at 99 Ranch when Tom circled around with the kids while I zipped around getting groceries. When we left he said, "Now I can see why you keep Tobey in the shopping cart. He is all over the place." Ah, the beginning of understanding.

Oh, and Tom did agree to try a weekend of kids sometime. :-)