In the Mosh-Pit
Posted by Shelli Altopp Miller at 7/1/2008 12:00 AM 
Categories: Relationships, Shelli Altopp Miller, Parenting
Tags: Family
Categories: Relationships, Shelli Altopp Miller, Parenting
Tags: Family
With school out for summer break and my munchkins consequently home six more hours per day, full-time homemaking just went into overdrive. My writing has been reduced to a few hasty sentences per sitting. The house is now more unmade than made, currently strewn with wet bathing suits and towels, muddy flip-flops, water balloon remnants, snack plates and crumbs, gum wrappers, bike helmets, and the mess from today's money-making project (see below). Thankfully, "homemaker" refers to more than just the cleanliness and overall appearance of our home. That would be called "housekeeping", and what I do is so much more (tired sigh), so very much more. I'm a life-shaper.
In the summer I have a daily internal conflict: The house, the kids, the husband, the insatiable writer inside me all compete for attention. The kids' demands are often loudest. They are ever looking for entertainment, squalling that they're hungry, calling friends to come over, fighting with each other, needing rides, assistance finding something, planning a sleepover, companionship on a bike ride, or supervision at the pool. Today the back door has slammed no less than fifty times with kids coming and going. As I sit and try to write in my squalid house, it's hard not to look at my kids' needs as distractions. Pushing guilt aside, I keep reminding myself that my job as a homemaker is primarily about nurturing these little intruders. Housework will always be there, writing can go on the back burner, but kids are just kids for a short time.
My industrious children picked wild raspberries in the woods behind our house, washed them, and sold them in boxes they folded out of paper. They spent half the previous day working on a business plan; They discussed pricing, made signs, decorated the boxes, worked out the most advantageous times to sell, and where to set up their table. By 11:00 a.m. they earned $12.00 selling raspberries - without any help from me. But I was here, encouraging, supporting, supervising, and allowing. They couldn't have done it without me. If I wasn't home, they'd be in someone else's home or in a childcare institution having organized fun. The mess, the conflict, guilt, intrusions, the mosh-pit of summer are all worth it if my kids have freedom and wide open spaces of time to create and conjure and just be kids. And in the process they just may learn that life is a balancing act, imperfect, wild, and best ridden alongside the ones you love.
In the summer I have a daily internal conflict: The house, the kids, the husband, the insatiable writer inside me all compete for attention. The kids' demands are often loudest. They are ever looking for entertainment, squalling that they're hungry, calling friends to come over, fighting with each other, needing rides, assistance finding something, planning a sleepover, companionship on a bike ride, or supervision at the pool. Today the back door has slammed no less than fifty times with kids coming and going. As I sit and try to write in my squalid house, it's hard not to look at my kids' needs as distractions. Pushing guilt aside, I keep reminding myself that my job as a homemaker is primarily about nurturing these little intruders. Housework will always be there, writing can go on the back burner, but kids are just kids for a short time.
My industrious children picked wild raspberries in the woods behind our house, washed them, and sold them in boxes they folded out of paper. They spent half the previous day working on a business plan; They discussed pricing, made signs, decorated the boxes, worked out the most advantageous times to sell, and where to set up their table. By 11:00 a.m. they earned $12.00 selling raspberries - without any help from me. But I was here, encouraging, supporting, supervising, and allowing. They couldn't have done it without me. If I wasn't home, they'd be in someone else's home or in a childcare institution having organized fun. The mess, the conflict, guilt, intrusions, the mosh-pit of summer are all worth it if my kids have freedom and wide open spaces of time to create and conjure and just be kids. And in the process they just may learn that life is a balancing act, imperfect, wild, and best ridden alongside the ones you love.
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