I was standing in the family room one night zoning out the window into the backyard when it hit me. Kind of like an epiphany. But also not. Not because this kind of thing happens to me a lot. As you may know. So I don’t that any one time counts as an epiphany. I had been thinking a lot about Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article in the Atlantic and Richard Dorment’s in Esquire about having it all. Meaning how to achieve the perfect work/life balance if that means having it all to you. The one thing they both seem to agree on is that women can’t have it all because men are not really sharing the work part, and men can’t have it all because men are not really sharing the work part. They both suggest all manner of remedies around flex time, but neither had much to say about the life part.
I try to spend as much time as I can with my kids. But I have an old school job. The kind where my father’s generation of men would have said they never had any time to be with their children. But that’s not really the way it’s supposed to be anymore. And for good reason. But unfortunately it still is. Since in practice not that much has really changed. I’m lucky if I get home before the kids go to bed. And on the weekends I’m just a tour guide. Taking them from one sport to another. Having someone else’s father coach them. Even the cub scout den meetings (for which I was voluntold to be an assistant leader and accepted the post so I could have some mandated father and son time ) are rushed between the birthday parties and the drama club rehearsals.
So there I was one night staring out into the darkness thinking about all this when it hit me. We had already put the kids to bed. There was nothing more I could do to be with them directly. But it occurred to me that there was something else I could do. Something that in a different way, without them, could still bring me closer to them.
I could do the dishes. Seriously. Not just because it had to get done. But because I wanted to do it. All of a sudden I was overcome by a very strange sense of pride. I turned and marched into the kitchen. As I pulled on the rubber gloves, I held my arms in the air for a brief moment like a TV doctor preparing for the grand entrance. First came the water, then the soap, and with each scrub I was still with them. Washing off their uneaten rice, scraping off their chicken scraps; was a way for me to be with them, to take care of them, when I couldn’t actually be around them.
It was a good night. Although, since then washing the dishes has not really carried that same level of excitement for me. And I still don’t do the laundry on any kind of regular basis. But when I haven’t seen the kids in a while or there is a chance that the house could potentially, maybe, possibly slip from the realm of absolute cleanliness, I just reach for the soap and make it alright.