04 Mar To Juggle or Not to Juggle?
I’ve always been impressed with people that can accomplish two tasks at once. For example: walk their dog and read the morning paper; push their child in a stroller and look at their phone; reply to emails while on a conference call; or have a conversation and be in their own minds ready to reply as soon as opportunity arises. If you can do more than one thing at a time, and do them well, you are the bee’s knees. At this moment, as much as I want to Google whether bees actually have knees, I am typing in a Word doc and that’s all my brain can manage.
Some of my circus family strutting their stuff.
I can’t talk and text at the same time and will often say, “Please hold that thought while I reply to this text,” or I won’t even look at my phone if I’m sharing a moment with another human. No joke: I usually only chew gum when I’m the passenger in a driving vehicle, and I cannot recall the last time I walked while chewing gum. Soul shifting conversations after 8 pm are not in my wheelhouse either. In fact, most conversations beyond “are the kids home from circus” are not going to happen. I am awestruck with y’all who juggle, literally (my family is part of circus) to figuratively, because alas I cannot. I never have been able to and don’t buy into the illusion that I can.
Close to 25 years ago, after a handful of years of my Daadi trying to arrange my marriage, I decided if anyone was going to arrange rules, bylaws, and boundaries for my future nuptials, it would be me. Suitor after suitor after suitor would visit, while I darted in and out of the house like a spy, constantly in stealth mode and always on a mission not to be detected, missing dinner functions, and preparing chai just one more time for the “special guest”.
Now, halfway into my forties, with time on my side and a compassion for the Desi culture that I grew up in, I understand why arranged marriages exist: families vet one another through back channels that the CIA and NSA only wish they could use, going back generations if needed; traditions and cultural expectations are discussed; parenting nuances are noticed and parsed; wishes of the partners are acknowledged and met in most cases; and in the end, the two individuals do have a right to say yes or please keep looking (that was always the case in my family).
This is very clear, grandparents and parents as well as aunts and uncles will keep it real when needed. “Ummm…no need to look for anyone too handsome because you’re just all right”; “your time is running out – while you invest in your education, your time for having children is nearing an end”; “a decade difference is not a big deal even if you’re 15 years old.” The advice commenced from all directions until at one point I decided that I would lay my own groundwork.
Daada was a police officer and as much as I admire law enforcement professionals, I do not have the disposition to marry anyone who elects to put their life in danger. I wanted a family and wasn’t interested in a partner who wanted to “party with the guys or hang with the boys”. If your line of work had you travelling frequently, this wasn’t for me either. How a person treats service workers tells me more about their character than how they treat the CEO of a company, principal of a school, or president of a country. Lastly, and probably most importantly, I believe in having an adult at home when children get home from school, so one of us needed to be a stay-at-home parent.
I was raised with a menagerie of cousins and we all came home to grandparents and great-aunts. We came home to chai bubbling and curry permeating our home and yard. We came home to sounds of Urdu, laughter, and sometimes heated debate between the two aunties. We came home to someone. We came home to family and love and nurturing and our village. I respect and honor every person’s choice in how they choose to raise a child. This was mine: I can do one major life role at a time, so I can be a full-time educator (which is what I studied) or a full-time parent.
Damon says that it was on our first date that I laid my ground rules; he’s probably right. “I can be a kick-ass teacher or a kick-ass partner/mother/homemaker but not both,” I said. “Otherwise, I would be a half-ass teacher and half-ass partner/mother/homemaker and half-assing things is just not me.” The boundary was set before we held hands, kissed, or connected beyond friends that we had been for several months. On our first date, people! I still wonder what the heck Damon saw in me? Maybe the truth.
“I held a huge amount of shame knowing that even though I had a six-year college education and probably could acquire a teaching position without much resistance, I chose not to.”
The word women’s liberation evokes powerful imagery, emotions, and declarations from most people whether they identify themselves as feminist or not. For years, I held a huge amount of shame knowing that even though I had a six-year college education and probably could acquire a teaching position without much resistance, I chose not to. I chose to clean the house, try recipes that interested me, bake a few times a week, fold clothes, Swiffer daily, host BBQs, carpool, go for walks with my toddler boys and daughter in a stroller to the “the big hill” (a small incline in a cul-de-sac within our neighborhood), gather art materials from recycled items to arrange arts and crafts projects, host a tea-party or picnic with Lacey, our neighbor and the boys’ childhood friend, check in on my neighbors, and everything else that entails my version of a “stay-at-home parent”.
Early on in my parenting role, Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda interviewed one another regarding their life’s work and who they were as young women and who they became as wiser, older beings. The boys were playing in the other room as opposed to the backyard, Sister was taking a nap, and I had laundry spread all over the couch, arranged in separate piles, with another load in front of me ready to fold. (Is there anything better than warm clothes straight out of the dryer on a cold, rainy day?)
Two of the greatest icons of the women’s movement were discussing the misinterpretations of the ideology. “We were not there saying ‘don’t be in the kitchen’, ‘go to work’, ‘earn money because that’s your only value,’” Fonda said. She went on to say that at its core, feminism is a construct that empowers each woman to choose what is best for her, thus positively impacting her family and community. “If what you are doing in your life right now aligns with your values and purpose – that is feminism,” the two agreed. At that moment, I was freed from a prison that I had created: The shame and judgment of pursuing my life’s purpose were replaced with joy and gratitude in being able to practice my calling!
“At that moment, I was freed from a prison that I had created: The shame and judgment of pursuing my life’s purpose were replaced with joy and gratitude in being able to practice my calling!”
The kids and I had stay-in-your-pajamas-all-day parties, baked and cooked together, went for walks oohing and aahing at Mother Nature’s bounty, ate dessert before dinner, hosted minimum-day pizza parties, cuddled while one of them was feeling under the weather, and watched numerous “shows” in our living room and eventually on the circus rig in our backyard. I have had the best seat in the house for the last 17 years since becoming a parent. I have been present on a daily basis being a Mama.
Life comes with decisions. The life Damon and I have with our children, no matter what it looks like from the outside perspective, came with certain challenges, but there was a phrase that I came across as an educator that stood at our core values: “We need food, water, shelter, and love”; I added education because knowledge fueled with compassion – beyond anything else in this world – has the ability to connect people, ideas, places, and heal humanity. Anything beyond the basic “needs” was a “want” and not necessary.
We rarely ate out or travelled beyond a summer stay with grandparents in LA, swimming in their pool, visiting the beach with a packed picnic, and joining museums on their free admission days. Most weekends were spent with cousins or friends making memories. Our first family vacation was to the Sequoias where I prepared and packed all the food for the three-day and two-night excursion. Our children had the blessing of grandparents purchasing back-to-school shoes and clothes for many years. It’s easy for me to get distracted so doing one thing at a time allows me to focus on the present, appreciating the past for what it taught me, and being grateful for where I am right now.
Now, that I’m done writing, it’s time to look up if bees actually have knees.
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