For those just tuning in, I’m on a two week jag talking about work and family and gender relations. Please be patient while I brain dump. Yesterday’s post was written, because last week, we had spent a long time debating ideal jobs of elite women. I just wanted to remind myself that idealism is all well and good, but the primary purpose of work is to eat. Today, I’m think about what idealism might look like.
Six years ago, the manager of the supermarket eyed me suspiciously as I handed over a coupon for free baby formula, because my husband and I were foolish enough to have a child while completing liberal arts degrees. Foolish, I tell you. Don’t go to grad school.
Despite the poverty, there were lots of good parts of 1999 and 2000.
We decided that the only way to get out of grad school and out of povery was to sprint to the finish. We both stayed home full time working on the dissertations and watching the baby. I had the morning shift with Jonah, while Steve wrote. I fed him and took him for a stroll up Fort Washington Avenue. When Jonah napped, we both were in the office. Me at the Mac and Steve at the PC typing away and chatting about the talk radio show that Steve had on in the backround. Then Steve would strap Jonah onto his chest, head out for his walk with binoculars and a bird book, so that I could have the afternoon to write.
We stopped writing at 4:30 and watched Judge Judy. Joan Didion wrote a lovely piece for the New York Times a month ago about the little rituals that she and her husband had as they wrote together. I understood.
All baby chores were shared 50/50. Housework 50/50. Together we made Jonah’s baby food and froze the pulped squash in ice cube trays.
We knew our neighbors and the community. I went to community meetings to complain about the drug dealers, because my neighbors were afraid to talk to the police. We knew Ahn the grocer, Frank the butcher, Helene the grumpy coffee house lady, Olga the babysitter.
In the midst of pitbulls and WIC checks, came some perfect moments and our defining experience as a couple. We’ll always be trying to figure out how to return to the good parts of that year. How can recreate that partnership of work and family without the bad parts?
Like how sick I was after the doctor botched my c-section. Or how Steve had to leave us for a month to do research in Germany with more borrowed money from my parents. Or how I got shingles from stress. Or how the boiler kept breaking that first winter, and Jonah slept with us on Christmas Eve to keep him warm in our bed. Three days straight with no hot water.
Yeah, I want health, hot water, and gender equality. Any ideas?
Apt. 11d 
Well, in terms of the health and hot water, there’s the way we’re trying it, where I worked in a lucrative field for over a decade first (saving up like mad) before trying grad school. We hope it’ll be less stressful, but time will tell.
As for gender equality, I’d love that, too, since I’m already the one doing most of the housework (that she’s never lived in her own place might have something to do with that). 🙂
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I think it’s time with my husband that I miss most, now that he’s in a big important corporate job. The poverty does suck. But man, I loved spending time together.
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