Pet Peeve

Somebody posted on FB today about how they never thought they'd have a job as a waitress or a short order cook, but now that's changed since they've had kids.

This line of reasoning really irritates me. You know, the "I'm a Mommy! That means I'm a chef, a chauffeur, a housekeeper, a personal organizer, and a personal shopper." Funny how you never hear them also claim the job of prostitute.

Because you know what? Cooking and cleaning for your kids is not the same as doing it for paid labor. And claiming that it does denigrates the hard work involved in doing that stuff for a living.

I worked in the kitchen of a restaurant for one short summer. It was a seafood restaurant and I cut and cooked fish all day. For 8 hours a day. I was in college, and it was a good job for a young person because it is exhausting to stand in a hot kitchen cooking fish all day. My entire body hurt at the end of each day, especially my arms and shoulders because the counters were too tall for me. I smelled of seafood by the time I got home, and it felt like I could never really wash that smell away. I counted down the minutes to my two 15-minute breaks because I would spend those 15 minutes with my arms straight down, resting them.

I'm not even going to pretend to know what it's like to do a job like that for years or decades. I was a spoiled college kid who basically spent the summer learning to appreciate how decadent it is to go back to school and sit in classes all day.

On the days that I'm home with the kids, I do a crapload of cooking and cleaning. I'm pretty much on my feet all day long. I make french toast, omelettes, or pancakes for breakfast. I prepare a mid-morning snack. I make pasta or sandwiches for lunch. I prepare a mid-afternoon snack. I make a homemade dinner every night. On Wednesdays I also bake something like scones or muffins or bread. It's a lot of cooking, but it is not the same as being a short order cook. Give me a break. I make what I want for the kids. I'm in the comfort of my own home. I take a break when I want to. I do it because I choose to do it. Yes, it's busy and it's tiring, but no, it's not anything close to what actual cooks do. I mean, come on.

You can make the same argument for any of those other "jobs" if you spend about half a second thinking about it or even trying to have an ounce of empathy for people who do those jobs. Being a mom is hard. Yes, it's a ton of work, and yes, it's physically exhausting. There are plenty of things worth discussing about what it feels like to do all of those tasks for your family, and what it can be like to not get much appreciation, or to face the fact that you have to re-do everything every single day, or the fact that you pretty much don't ever get to just be sick and stay in bed, because even if you're sick, there are kids to take care of. All of that stuff is super labor intensive. But it is not the same as being, say, a maid who cleans other people's toilets for a living. And I find it insulting to pretend that it is.