"Your time isn't valuable."

Probably every other American mom with more than three school age kids at home feels about the same as I do right now.

I am a broken record. The kids have been out of school for almost three months. Our house is a disaster - and it's not from lack of effort on my part. Our schedules are all messed up. Everybody's getting enough sleep, at least. But everybody's also sleeping in until 8, 9, sometimes 10. Or they wake up at the crack of dawn and sneak to the basement to play videogames. And I laze around playing on my phone until finally everyone is so stir crazy we have to go do something.

The worst part really is the fact that I get to be the CEO of the house. And by CEO I mean "Chief Entropy Officer." I am a nag, and I can't stand it. It feels like nobody is listening. There are messes in our house that every other human being who lives here walks by without noticing, but I certainly notice. It annoys me every time.

During the school year there is some structure imposed on all of us by the school schedule. And I learned many, many years ago the secret to having a clean house: get out of it. When you stay home, your house falls apart. If you go out and do stuff, it stays clean. Simple, right? Well, when it's 90 degrees outside and your three older kids just want to play pokémon together and you have a just-barely-learned-to-walk baby and a whining four year old princess in tow, getting out of the house to go to the pool (hot, sweaty, effort, sunburn, too sunny, really sunny, did I mention sunny?) or wherever sounds like a real drag. I cannot really tell you how many times I've been to the zoo. To the Living History Farms (which is my favorite place in the DSM area, by the way). To this park. To that park. To the other park. To the one pool. To the other pool. To the gym's pool. To the library. To Walmart. To a friend's house. And on and on and on.

My time is not my own.

All of my "down" time recently has been focused on our stake's family history center. I've been trying to get it set up in a reasonably usable way with the material at hand, to make the lab be a space where people would actually want to come and work. People do come to use the center, but it's not during the time when I staff it. I have helped only a small handful of patrons, and that's truly frustrating. It's like I am sacrificing my time, and nobody values it anyway.

My other down time has been spent reading. It's a lonely escapism. I like it, but...

...but...

...yeah.

I like people a lot more. I like talking with people, interacting with people, being around people, making/watching people react to what I have to say. I really hate the isolation of these summer breaks.

"I will probably actually not make bread today."
"Kate, you definitely don't have to. I wouldn't."
"Because you're lazy."
"Right. But really... because it's so much work. And bread isn't that expensive. It's like, $3/loaf."
"Uh, where have you been shopping? It's at least $5/loaf for a comparable loaf."
"Sure, for a comparable loaf. But I'd just make do with the cheap loaf."
"So it would be more like $6/day because you have to eat two loaves of that crappy air-filled bread. Most of what you buy is just air."
"Right, but what I mean is that it's a lot of work and you don't have to do it."
"I think I priced it out once before, and it was something like 5-10x cheaper to make your own bread. Plus, it uses the wheat in our food storage. Plus it's delicious. Plus it's healthier."
"Right, but I would never do it because it's so much work!"
"Well, I don't really mind."
"But, I'm saying that your time is valuable."

[pause]

"My time isn't valuable."

And there we come to the root of the problem. I want my time to be valuable. I personally value my time. The people around me do not. If they did, our house wouldn't be such a disaster. I guess. Maybe I'm wrong.

My brother asked me to read this book called "Boundaries" by Henry Cloud. According to him, my problem is that I do a terrible job of setting boundaries in my life. Of saying "no." Of making sure that the people in my world know my own limits.

Pfffft.

First of all, I am objectively already doing a pretty good job at those things. I can't do better than my best.

Second, this guy has a wife and two kids. I don't especially think he's qualified to tell me that I suck at parenting five small kids that are close together in age, whatever his public or research accolades may be. Maybe a father of ten kids might have a clue. I'd probably be more likely to appreciate and listen to the mother, if she were the primary caregiver.

Third, this is not a helpful message for me. I don't need criticism and nitpicking of my imperfections. I need patient praise and wise words about how to overcome perfectionism.

"Yeah. Apparently this jerk thinks a lack of boundaries is the root cause of my anxiety."
"Jeez Kate, why didn't you think of that before? 'I am putting a boundary around myself: no more anxiety.'"

hahahahahaha

#toolongarantforfacebook
#dumpitonmyblogwithapproximatelyfiveregularreaders

But really, I think my personal stay at home mom angst could be summed up in these four (or five, depending on how you want to count it) little words: "Your time isn't valuable."

I know it should be.

I know I'm really smart.

I know that I could be making a lot of money at some desk somewhere.

I know that I could be helping educate the future and making a big difference in the lives of young people by teaching somewhere.

I know that I could be writing and presenting on interesting topics and receiving all the same kinds of alphabet soup credentials and public accolades at the back of my name, like the aforementioned Dr. Cloud. What's more, the self help book I would write, were I to venture down that genre's rabbit hole, would be backed up with all kinds of empirical data rather than bible verses (vomit). Did I mention this book is basically the single-most wrath inducing thing I've read this summer?

The sacrifice is immense. I don't know what else there is to say about it besides the sacrifice is almost too much.

I dream about graduate school, where somebody will be required to read my writing and give me feedback, where I'll sit in a classroom with people, where I'll get some small beginning of alphabet soup credentials to pile next to my name, and where I'll get to use my time to learn about interesting, deep things that I care about rather than scrub the kitchen sink for the millionth time.

It's not like I haven't been trying to use my time well, either. I know I do a good job of trying to juggle interesting projects and aspirations. But when I'm in graduate school, the people around me will have to buck up and deal with it. To face the fact that they have to value my time. And I'm not talking about Danny, who actually does value my time. I am mostly talking about my kids.

Honestly, I think the truth is they won't even notice because my school will mostly overlap when they're at school or it will be in the evenings. But we will see.

I hate it when my personal values conflict. How valuable I esteem my time to be constantly conflicts with how important I believe it is to care for children. The latter always wins, and it's really hard.

So this is why I have a blog. To complain about it.