Gimme A Break

God hasn't blogged since before Christmas. I'm starting to worry about what's keeping Him so busy up there.

Anyway, I don't want to jinx it or anything, but Sister is doing a lot better. She may not even need surgery. So that is good news. This has just been a really rough patch. Mother's Friend nearly had a heart attack and was in the hospital during the same time that Sister was back and forth, and throughout all of this, Sister's Boyfriend is home recovering from his heart surgery. When it rains, it pours. They ain't kidding.

Since yesterday, I've been really ticked off. I'm fortunate enough to have been raised by parents who expected that Sister and I would have careers as adults. I guess decades ago, the plan was for a woman to get married, and then the backup plan was to get a job if marriage didn't happen for her. In my family, it was the reverse. Since Sister shows no interest in a career - at least not at this point - Mother has shrugged her shoulders and said to me, "Maybe she'll just get married then." My mother still reminds me, with a kind of nostalgic longing, that I wanted to be a lawyer when I was in junior high school.

Anyway, we have needed serious babysitting help in the past week (you can imagine). Two of my "aunts" (Mother's Aunt and Mother's Cousin) have graciously provided that help. And while they were at our home, they cleaned it for us. Now, I'll admit, our house is pretty messy. Before Mother had a career, it was always very clean, but now it is just not feasible (or fair) to expect the same type of upkeep now. Most of us do our share but with all the running around everyone has done since Father's accident, the birth of the baby, and the recent hospitalization boom, it hasn't exactly been pristine. So the fact that they cleaned it for us was a nice thing, I suppose. But they had to go and ruin it.

Yesterday Mother told me that while she was picking the baby up from Mother's Cousin's house, M.C., M.A. and Mother's Cousin #2 were all talking about how messy our home is. On top of that, Mother's Cousin #2 (who hasn't bothered with us in a couple of years, and has never once visited my father since his accident) commented that Mother has two grown daughters, and therefore the house should be clean. Mother relayed the story to me as if this was an excellent point. She didn't come out and say it, but I know her. She wanted me to feel ashamed that our apparently slovenly ways are the talk of the family.

I went crazy. You shouldn't push people who are ultra-stressed, you really shouldn't.

I told Mother that the family would do well to remember that Sister and I provide child-care for Kid Sisters, and have for the past five years. It also isn't very nice that they offered to clean up for us and then turned around and talked about us amongst themselves. Then I launched into a monologue (one of my best, I feel) about what a sexist comment it was, and that it offended me that as a daughter I am more responsible for cooking and cleaning than a son would be. I told Mother that I am not aspiring to be a housewife like my aunts are. (I have nothing against housewives, but it should be a choice, not a gender requirement, dammit!) As I stormed downstairs into my room, I yelled, "I have other talents besides washing dishes!"

I suppose I should prioritize better. Say, clean up the house instead of take Sister to the emergency room. Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.

Stupid patriarchy.