B-Rant

- submitted by L. Keenan on 05/19/2008

Why I Can't Return to Work (Cuz Men Kinda Suck)

By Linda Keenan

I wasn't going to include that stink-bomb of a subtitle about men kinda sucking, until I started talking to my husband Steve about the gist of this piece and he said, "yeah, men do kinda suck."

I had my child Frank four years ago, and I've been wanting to go back to work for, oh, about 3 years and 364 days. I shouldn't portray myself as a Mommie Dearest. Recently my son said to me, "Mommy, no more hugging. You've hugged me too much today." But cuddly as I am, I still miss the adult camaraderie, swearing and conversation.

Mostly these days I have conversations with myself, like this: "Hey Linda, what did you think of that (take your pick) primary yesterday? WTF?" "Yeah, Linda, (he)(she) f-ing rocked that mother, right?" So I long to go back to work in a few years when Frank goes to school full-time. Why do I feel like that's an impossibility? That's where the men-sucking part comes in.

Now I'm blessed with a man who is on the low end of the sucking scale, with, oh, I don't know, Mr. Rogers at one end and those asses who rule Burma at the other end. Steve's patience with our son is extraordinary, and frankly irritating to this less-patient mother. What does he suck at? It's the myriad of little things that have to be done to keep a child in proper working order: school life, friend life, wardrobe, cleanliness, nutrition, pediatric appointments, sports and did you remember to write a check for the end of the year teachers' gift? No, of course not.

I remember vividly when, soon after Frank was born, visiting a very progressive ex-girlfriend of my very progressive husband, who now has her own very progressive husband (parse that!). Steve couldn't find our baby's bottle in the 30 seconds flat that I deemed necessary for my immediate mental survival. I found it with dispatch, and at that moment, Steve's friend, a mother of three older sons, grabbed my arm and said, "they never remember anything. And they never get better."

She was right. Of course, I have the time now to handle all these little odds and ends, but if I were to go back to the profession in which I excelled, news, I would be clocking in a solid 10 hours a day. How would these things get done?

Steve insists that he would do them and he gladly would but I would have to make a list for him (sometimes I just call out things for him to do and then he says he feels like my intern). I don't understand why he can't seem to intuit all these tasks, some of which, to my mind, defy list-making, like "get friendly with that neighbor because they have the only kid our age within a mile." By the time I make a list, I should just do it all myself. The sentiment has been echoed again and again by mothers I know, ones who work and ones who don't. Men kinda suck.

It's become sort of fashionable these days to take the contrary and dismissive view of all these little things, putting them under the rubric of "helicopter parenting." The argument is that if you just relax on these things, your kid will be fine, they are quite resilient and it might even build character if you let a few things fall by the wayside.

The problem is, I was one of those "resilient" kids. Yes, I made it but did it build character? I know it left scars and indelible memories of not having the right clothes for picture day, of not having the gift on the day of the Secret Santa, of never having a friend invited over, and on and on. (My mom was wonderful but overworked and overwhelmed.) I won't let that happen to my boy if I can help it and if that means rejecting the 10-hour a day job, so be it. Or maybe I just need to get my marvelous husband to suck a little less.

By the way, Steve just said, "I can't believe you are writing this as I Q-Tip clean one of Frank's sippy cups!" Maybe I need to suck a little less too.

Linda Keenan is a contributing writer at Burbia. Linda worked 7 years as a head writer/senior producer for various programs on CNN. Before that she worked as a writer/producer for Bloomberg TV. She now writes satire, primarily about parenting culture, at Thoroughly Modern Mommy.