invisible employee

Last night I attended a friend of a friends work in progress performance at The Flynn Space. It was great to be out. All sorts of people from the theatre community were there. There were 4 actors in the show. Three of them were women my age. None of them had children. Before the show started I met another colleague (who does not have children) and we caught up on our current work lives....where she was teaching and how busy she was. Before we said our goodbyes and returned to our seats she told me how she was acting in a show soon..."I think it's really important to act if you are going to be an acting teacher. I don't want to be one of those teachers who doesn't do what they teach." "No, me neither." I said, after a long pause in which I reflected on the amount of performance opportunities I have had to turn down since having children....how it has been 4 years since I have acted....how nobody knows about all those possible shows that didn't happen and how the requests have stopped coming in. Parenting is so humbling, so ego less. I hate these moments where I feel I am being measured up, whether that is true or not...and there is this whole giant piece of work that I am doing....this thing that keeps me up at night...this constant responsibility that not only consumes my time and energy but my thoughts and concerns, filling me with decisions and a constant sense of responsibility....this amazing act or raising another human being...well, it just doesn't fit into the conversation. It is as if this thing that I am doing with my life right now is invisible....is mundane...is ordinary...it doesn't count. It gets a small acknowledgement in the "so what are doing these days" conversation, if that. "oh, yeah, you are home with your children." Therefore, you are disappearing off the professional charts....falling behind on your resume....missing out on the latest trainings and opportunities....becoming mundane....redundant. Yes, this is my bleak reflection at this moment....I almost cried after this conversation....after this event. It wasn't that I was jealous, it was that I felt that I wasn't fully seen.....I felt misunderstood. As I wipe up the third spill of juice and clean bits of play dough out of my rug and have my baby run away with the toilet paper or pull things out of the trash or scatter the Tupperware that I just put away....I can't help but envision all those childless colleagues of mine just waking up and checking their e-mail and drinking their tea with music on in the background or going for a run or to a yoga class or networking to get their next job and I feel petty and I feel that it just isn't fair.
I love my boys. Honestly, I don't want it any other way. I just wish that this work that I am doing didn't feel so damn invisible and unrecognized. It seems the greatest irony to me that I am working the hardest I have ever worked in my life on the most intense and relentless job and to those without children I am still viewed as "no working" or unemployed". So what do we do to change this? Nobody would deny, logically, that raising children is incredibly important work...yet it still feels so invisible.....why?

Thin Blue Line

Julien is exploding with words. Up, down, house, fish, apple....new words all day long.
He is also exploding all our drawers and cupboards. He endlessly pulls out measuring cups, tupperware, paper and pens. Bags left by the door are not safe from his curious and fast fingers. He follows Lukas around wanting to do and say and be everything that Lukas is. "And Me" He says, over and over again all day long.
Last night Jorg and I had a date. It was really simple and sweet. We went to dinner at Leunigs and then wandered up the street to browse peacefully and nostolgically at Crow Bookstore (where Jorg immediatly went to the children's books and I ended up in the parenting section! Ah, a night away from the kids...) I waited tables at Leunigs for over 6 years in my 20's. That place in many ways kept my relationship with Jorg alive, as it funded all my travels to and from Europe. It was so odd to be the couple out on a date night in a place where I was once a free flying 20 year old. It also felt nice. This is where I imagined I would be at 36. No matter how challenging things get or cranky I feel sometimes, I know that I don't want it any other way. This is what life is about. This is what I wanted. However, I have become clear that THIS is how I want it. Baby number three, though once an idea that we toyed with, is no longer a vision that I care to entertain. Throughout most of my post puberty existance I have had a strange facination with pregnancy tests. Even a few days late and I would buy one...maybe two even. Who knows, I might need one again next month. The drama around a late period fueled me with hours of high intensity possible situations to envision. "What would we do?" "How would I tell Jorg or my parents?" "What would I do about my work?" So much change rocking my world. Suddenly I would not be in contol of my destiny but instead uprooted and thrust into new circumstances....so exciting....sort of like a backwards lottery ticket....one you don't really want to win...."Just imagine the feeling. Just imagine the moment...." But now I really really don't want to win that ticket. I like our lives. I like our little family. I like my slowly returning freedoms. Julien is almost two. It kind of takes that long to get a sense of my own life again...have evenings...be able to go out. I don't want to add another member to this family...but I also don't want to make big changes to our bodies....take pills.....have operations....meddle. So what do I do now? How many more tests will I have to buy? How do I make sure that when I look in that little window we are still walking on that thin blue line?