THE OLD MAN AS MR. MOMTHE OLD MAN AS MR. MOM
It was a poor joke.
We fought tooth and nail for the privilege.
I had the honor of raising two of my three beautiful daughters, from the ages of 12 and 8. I look back now and wonder how I had the energy to do all that I had to do, but also recognize that I had it a lot easier than most single parents. We were blessed in many ways, and material matters were not a great concern. I am self-employed and so was largely able to adjust my schedule to accommodate their needs. And all three of my daughters are wonderful people and were very good kids, though I do take some of the credit for that, and so did not present me with the same sort of challenges that many overwhelmed single parents must confront.
In addition to all that though, I did my best to approach the task and each day with as much humor as I could muster. My learning to cook fit in with this outlook. One time I was helping my youngest daughter cook her recipe of blueberry muffins that she had brought home from third grade. We had pulled up a stool so she could reach the counter and mix the ingredients herself. It was a special moment and I could become very mellow at times like these, so I was very laid back as she read the big block letters of the recipe and merrily added the ingredients... “one tablespoon of vegetable oil... one teaspoon of sugar... one cup of salt... two cups of flour...” ...one CUP of SALT!?!?!? The tranquillity of the moment was dashed as we suddenly set about trying to retrieve all the salt we could.
They were still very special muffins, even if I did grimace a bit as I enjoyed them.
I inherited a cleaning lady from the marriage, and was a bit surprised when - after I was finally divorced - she gave her notice, explaining that she had actually retired a year or so before but had not wanted to leave me in the lurch, but now she and her husband were moving to Florida.
When I was married I had never enjoyed the process of locating a new person to clean, and - to tell the truth - I had never enjoyed having a person clean up after me. This is odd since I do such a poor job of cleaning up after myself.
And I thought, why should a household with an able-bodied father and two girls nearing adolescence require the services of a cleaning woman? Although they were each assigned chores and actually performed them from time to time, the bulk of the cleaning fell to me to do which meant that it was done erratically if at all.
I remember once when I was vacuuming, I reflected upon the different approach that men and women take to such a task. Most women probably vacuum regularly, even frequently, and then once in a while may do a deep cleaning where they move all the furniture around and vacuum behind and under everything.
I, on the other hand, vacuumed infrequently and irregularly, but every cleaning was a deep one, almost like an athletic contest. I demonstrated the male advantage in upper body strength as effortlessly I moved heavy items of furniture here and there to attack each fleck of dust, every molecule of dirt, no matter where they might hide.
It was as though, having dealt the legions of dust and dirt a massive defeat in their ineluctable campaign to soil my environment, I could relax the longer. I rationalized that there was no need to clean often so long as you cleaned well.
And another thing occurred to me as I vacuumed with such gusto. Women, plainly handicapped when it came to critical analytical intelligence and even a curiosity about things mechanical... unlike myself, these women - as they vacuumed - probably never so much as wondered, as the vacuum magically sucked the floor clean, where does all that dirt go?
