the making of a drunken housewife

I never set out to be a housewife, drunken or otherwise. I have always been a feminist, fairly militant (one of my more submissive friends live-in boyfriend once forbade her to hang around me after I discovered that he did no cooking or housework). In my youth, I was insanely ambitious. I went to Stanford for law school and worked as an attorney for some time. People used to ask me if I wanted to have kids, and I said, "I want to make partner, not parent."

As an urban, foulmouthed, hard-working professional, I hated babies. Really loathed them. When people asked me if I wanted to hold their baby, I'd say, "No, thank you" and try not to grimace. Those sticky, gross little hands, shudder.

So right around the time I filed for divorce from my first husband, I gave my phone number to someone who turned out to be obsessed with kids. On our first date, he asked me if I wanted to have children. The next morning, he said to me with inordinate seriousness, "You are perfect for me for the short haul and the the medium haul, but not for the long haul, because I've got to have kids." At the time, I freaked out at this intensity and wondered if he was going to be a stalker. But as the years went on, he grew on me, and all his pressure paid off.

When we got married, we agreed to try for a baby. I didn't expect to stay home with the child. I set myself the goals of breastfeeding for one year and staying home with the baby for that first year. Always an overachiever, six and a half years later I'm still taking care of the children (but not still breastfeeding; thankfully, they have weaned themselves). So now I bring my unique blend of overachieving intensity and laziness to the field of mothering.

My biggest personal problem is a bourgeois one: I get so sick of not being taken seriously by people as a stay-at-home parent. When I was an attorney, people treated me with respect (and sometimes a bit of fear, maybe a touch of loathing, often a sprinkling of lust). Now if people meet me, they aren't interested in talking to me after they've categorized me as "just" a mother. Sometimes I say something, and someone's ears will perk up and the question will follow: "What did you do before you had kids?" Feh.

I'm happiest hanging out with other overeducated stay-at-home parents, who understand my angst at not being in the workplace but my absolute commitment and joy in my children.

When my first was just about to turn one year old, I looked at her perfect face and could not bear to put her in daycare. My husband was thrilled when I told him that (he has a bit of chauvinist in him, and it's an ego booster for him to have a traditional family). I hate the whole working-mothers-vs.-stay-at-home-parents conflict (where are the fathers in that fight? I'm for more stay-at-home-dads). But my personal viewpoint was that I don't want to put my child in daycare until she can tell me, articulately, what happened during her day. That has ended up, in our case, meaning a bit of preschool, but no real daycare before kindergarten.

So where does the drunkenness come in? The other day I was hanging out with another stay-at-home mom friend, an accomplished writer, and we were jonesing for a cocktail. "It's Mother's Little Helper," we told the waitron. You spend the day with little children, and the crying will drive you to drink. All that crying, my god, it can eat away at your soul and shred your last nerve. I used to have a glass of wine every day when "Arthur" came on in the afternoon; pack the children off for a refreshing half hour of PBS and pour myself a glass of Two Buck Chuck, and we could all take a deep breath and continue on.