Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace by Ayelet Waldman Page B
Authors: Ayelet Waldman
Ads: Link
he was hit by a car speeding through a turn. After he died, his wife, Ariel, told me that one of the many things she missed about him was having a man in the house to fix a dripping faucet, put together an Ikea cabinet, change the batteries in the smoke detector. David was killed the day before trash pickup, and that night the cans did not go out. The next week, as Ariel hauled out the heavy bins brimming with the detritus of a week’s shiva—paper plates, plastic cups, uncountable wads of damp tissue—she realized that she was alone.
There was nothing traditional about those two. David was like Michael, as involved a father as I’ve ever seen. He didn’t just change the occasional diaper; he assumed equal responsibility for the care of their daughter. Ariel is a massage therapist, a doula, and while I’m not sure, I’m willing to bet she’d call herself a feminist. Still, when it came to home repair, the division of labor fell along traditional lines. That’s the way it is in my marriage, too.
For all my adamant feminism, it never occurred to me to take Michael’s name when we married, and not just because to do so would have horrified my mother. I am a supporter of abortion rights, of equal pay for equal work, of the rights of women prisoners, of all the time-honored feminist causes, and then some. During the periods in my marriage when I chose to stay home withmy kids, even though I knew I was contributing to our family by caring for our children, I still felt that my worth was less because I wasn’t earning.
Even given all this, I haven’t changed a lightbulb in sixteen years, since the day I met my husband.
Before I was married, I didn’t consider my failure to manage even basic hand tools a feminist inadequacy. I thought it had more to do with being Jewish. The Jews I knew growing up didn’t do “do-it-yourself.” When my father needed to hammer something, he generally used his shoe, and the only real tool he owned was a pair of needle-nose pliers. My non-Jewish friends had fathers who changed faucet washers (they knew what faucet washers
were
) and re-planed sticky doors. My father hacked with a pair of needle-nose pliers at anything my mother was not willing to call a repairman to fix.
Now when something breaks in the house, I respond with the panic of my forebears. Every popped lightbulb is a catastrophe, every leaky faucet spells, if not the end of the world, then surely the beginning of months of crack-assed plumbers hunched over my sinks and toilets, flushing my hard-earned dollars down their mysterious drains. It always takes me a minute to remember that Michael is not like my father. He’s got a set of needle-nose pliers, even two, but he’s also got slip-joint pliers and groove-joint pliers and pliers I don’t even know the names of. When the faucet leaks, he not only knows what a washer is, he can replace it. Moreover, he enjoys the job. He hangs pictures, he unclogs toilets, he knows what to do when the computer flashes that scary little bomb icon.
Each time, after my initial moment of hysteria, I feel a wave of contentment, of security. I feel protected. I am a damsel in clogged-drain distress, and he is my knight with shining plunger.It is uncomfortable for me to admit that when it comes to this part of our lives, I want to feel sheltered and cared for. There is something seductive about letting go of this area of concern. Instead of causing anxiety, a dripping faucet now reminds me that there is someone in my life who can take care of such things.
When Michael goes away, I allow things in the house to fall into a state of ridiculous disarray. I avert my eyes from the blinking oil light in the car; I prop a door closed with a chair until he comes home to fix the latch. I lie in the dark and listen to the toilets running, waiting for him to do whatever it is he does to make them quiet again. As lightbulbs burn out, the kids and I just squint in the ever-increasing gloom.
When I was
There was nothing traditional about those two. David was like Michael, as involved a father as I’ve ever seen. He didn’t just change the occasional diaper; he assumed equal responsibility for the care of their daughter. Ariel is a massage therapist, a doula, and while I’m not sure, I’m willing to bet she’d call herself a feminist. Still, when it came to home repair, the division of labor fell along traditional lines. That’s the way it is in my marriage, too.
For all my adamant feminism, it never occurred to me to take Michael’s name when we married, and not just because to do so would have horrified my mother. I am a supporter of abortion rights, of equal pay for equal work, of the rights of women prisoners, of all the time-honored feminist causes, and then some. During the periods in my marriage when I chose to stay home withmy kids, even though I knew I was contributing to our family by caring for our children, I still felt that my worth was less because I wasn’t earning.
Even given all this, I haven’t changed a lightbulb in sixteen years, since the day I met my husband.
Before I was married, I didn’t consider my failure to manage even basic hand tools a feminist inadequacy. I thought it had more to do with being Jewish. The Jews I knew growing up didn’t do “do-it-yourself.” When my father needed to hammer something, he generally used his shoe, and the only real tool he owned was a pair of needle-nose pliers. My non-Jewish friends had fathers who changed faucet washers (they knew what faucet washers
were
) and re-planed sticky doors. My father hacked with a pair of needle-nose pliers at anything my mother was not willing to call a repairman to fix.
Now when something breaks in the house, I respond with the panic of my forebears. Every popped lightbulb is a catastrophe, every leaky faucet spells, if not the end of the world, then surely the beginning of months of crack-assed plumbers hunched over my sinks and toilets, flushing my hard-earned dollars down their mysterious drains. It always takes me a minute to remember that Michael is not like my father. He’s got a set of needle-nose pliers, even two, but he’s also got slip-joint pliers and groove-joint pliers and pliers I don’t even know the names of. When the faucet leaks, he not only knows what a washer is, he can replace it. Moreover, he enjoys the job. He hangs pictures, he unclogs toilets, he knows what to do when the computer flashes that scary little bomb icon.
Each time, after my initial moment of hysteria, I feel a wave of contentment, of security. I feel protected. I am a damsel in clogged-drain distress, and he is my knight with shining plunger.It is uncomfortable for me to admit that when it comes to this part of our lives, I want to feel sheltered and cared for. There is something seductive about letting go of this area of concern. Instead of causing anxiety, a dripping faucet now reminds me that there is someone in my life who can take care of such things.
When Michael goes away, I allow things in the house to fall into a state of ridiculous disarray. I avert my eyes from the blinking oil light in the car; I prop a door closed with a chair until he comes home to fix the latch. I lie in the dark and listen to the toilets running, waiting for him to do whatever it is he does to make them quiet again. As lightbulbs burn out, the kids and I just squint in the ever-increasing gloom.
When I was
Similar Books
