Who Is Watching The Children?

I drink whiskey because I like how it sounds, rolling out of my mouth and onto the bar. The burning sweet bite at the close of each swallow has grown on me over the years, and where I once had to brace the back of my tongue for the awaited burn, that same tongue now salivates when I near the well. This behavior is learned, imprinted. I’ve adapted to the thick warmth it brings. What I can’t accustom myself to, what I should not have to accustom myself to, is the side-eye glance, the blazing double standard that follows in its wake.

With the arrival of my children, one after the other after the other after the other, this casual indulgence, this not-so-secret yet sporadic affair, seems to have upset the system, leaving behind a sad woman with a fuzzy vision of who she is or was or is permitted to be. Glass in hand, I relax into the feelings, thoughts, fears, never-saids, should have saids, wish-I’d-never-saids. Those words that lay lodged in an abandoned shell of myself shake loose and make room, lighten my load. And while my life is joyous and brimming with happy children who I watch day in and out, watch with love and pain and awe, this life still has weight. It all has weight, and sometimes, that weight needs to be set down.

I used to drink gin with three limes, a splash of tonic and an extremely short skirt. I drank gin when my youth and anger sat right on the surface, when no one would mistake me for an aging woman with a cocker spaniel and a Tuesday bridge date. But the years and children have worn me down and tucked the rawness deep, the honesty and rage down deep in shadowed places beneath responsibilities and clean countertops and expectations of adulthood. Nay, motherhood.

After a long week or long month of weeks, I trade the fresh scented gin wilderness for something weathered in sturdy barrels, dusty barns. Ice to the rim. Generous pour. Stir twice with my finger because who wants to wash another spoon. I wash enough spoons.

With the first one down, it’s hard to pass up another. It feels like home. My fingertips go numb and the weight of my body and those heavy thoughts lift. The disparate selves embrace, forlorn mother meets lost child, an awkward reunion, the too-long hug of an old lover that was always wrong but looks really right and everyone is staring. And by the close of the second drink I’ve forgotten that one must stay true to their current form. This previous, freer self was not invited to the gathering. This shape-shifter is making everyone uncomfortable, especially the men. Too profane. Too loud. Too female? Too male? Too much.

I retreat and try to fit back into the role of which I’m now cast. When I wake at 3 a.m., I take a long drink of water then pull the covers up over my head to disappear. At dawn, I soak up the disdain and nagging guilt, wrap it in my robe, and creep into the morning light. Mustn’t stay in bed too long. Must make coffee, pancakes, scramble eggs, fry bacon and hope the scent reminds him that I am the same woman he saw yesterday morning. She’s still here. The late-night shape-shifter is back inside the bottle, locked away until the next time someone dares crack it open to see if she is still alive. I am there, patiently biding my time, waiting for a window when the house is quiet – no sounds to emerge and remind me that I am a mother, not a father.

Because if I were, this would not be a problem. I know men, lots of them, fathers, husbands, sons, little league coaches and church-goers and professionals, pillars of the community with fat paychecks and big titles. Admiration, respect bows at their feet. People hang on their breath, scotch-tinged, cigar-laced.

At backyard BBQ’s, Thanksgivings and open houses, Super Bowl parties and Sunday dinners, I watch them reach in the cooler. I hear the ice greet them, applauding their decision to relax, enjoy themselves. They do deserve it, don’t they? The bottles cheer, clink, invert, bottoms up down greedy throats. Comfy on the couch while mothers busy themselves in the kitchen. Sheltered in the garage, the fathers laugh into the stale air of a hot afternoon, as mothers chase babies through damp grass, the sweat pooling on upper lips, bases of bras.

“Oh, you know my husband. Always has to talk football!”

“He’s had a big week. He really deserves a break.”

“He did bedtime last night, so you know.”

No, I actually don’t know. Please, I implore you, explain why this matters. Explain how this fully-functioning adult, this father of your children, is not equally responsible for these humans that he helped produce. Explain why his breaks so readily come, and you with your full-time career, your hold-the-house-together-by-the-skin-of-your-unbrushed-teeth, your breaks are few and far between.

What are we doing here? Why are we in the kitchen scrubbing pots after picnics and football games, holiday meals while the boys kick their feet up, sink into sofas, stare into televisions? Why are mothers chasing children around and around in circles while fathers stand still, toast one another and themselves and pretend they don’t see?

Call me self-righteous. Call me whatever you like, but don’t call me into the kitchen while five males sit lounging in the family room. I’ll burn the fucking house down.

I will not live like this. I will not congratulate your husband (or my own) for changing a diaper, making a meal, bathing his own child. This isn’t congratulatory at all. It’s an insult. How incompetent must we make men out to be that we idolize each one who takes a hand in raising their children?

These men, these husbands of ours, are good and able, loving and gentle, equal in their biological motivation to ensure their progeny’s growth, their progeny’s access to clean dishes and an orderly home, bathed bodies and restful slumbers. And whether it stems from our own need to control each aspect of our lives, or it bubbles up from patterns of behavior learned over centuries of hunting and gathering, farming and child-rearing, or it rains down from the pulpit, stale religious constructs put in place to keep women pregnant and populating the church pews – from wherever it comes, it’s time to let it go.

Let him share the load while you take a moment to pause, lower yourself into that lawn chair in the shade of an oak tree, watching as your husband, their father, plays and runs and chases your children, the ones you created together. Sit back and relax, close your eyes and grab hold of those fraying ends of sanity before they slip away. I do this with a Jack and Coke. Maybe you just need a nap.

Yes, we’ve pushed past the days of aprons-over-day-dresses and breakfast-on-the-table-served-with-fresh-squeezed-orange-juice-and-a-full-face-of-make-up and honey-bring-me-my-scotch-on-the-rocks-while-you-clean-the-house-and-the-children, but let’s not pretend stigmas and unsaid expectations don’t still linger, haunt us when we dare reach for that first drink, or heaven forbid, a second! What kind of mother is she, anyways? Is she drinking whiskey? I mean, who is watching the children?

– Ashley, Woman of a Certain Rage