About this time every year the weather starts to warm up a bit and Bren starts waking up earlier and earlier. The good part of this is that he puts a hot latte in front of me as soon as I get up but the bad is that the guilt starts.Because our farm is our home I feel guilty when he leaves early and spends the days labouring away outside while I am playing with a 2 year old. He is shovelling concrete and we are playing with play do, he is driving the tractor and we are dressing up, he is feeding the chooks or pruning the trees or planting or weeding and we are playing.
About this time of year every year we have a conversation about our roles as parents and on the farm and afterwards we both feel better. Funny how we need to have it over and over every year.He is working away outside and then when he comes in for meals is exhausted and hungry and hasn't got the energy to fix a meal for himself and the team. I feel like I am not pulling my weight if I am not contributing to the running of the farm.
But if I make sure there's food in the fridge and prepare the meals then I am contributing and I can still hang out with Miss Pepper, guilt free.These are very traditional male/female roles but they work for us in these really busy times of the year. And then at other times we swap, he looks after the girls and I work on the farm, that's fun too.
Yesterday we had seven hungry farm working mouths to feed at lunch time. They walked in to lunch on the table and ate these cookies with tea afterwards.
I must go now I've been invited to a tea party.
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Yes I know all about the guilts too, as Paul is usually exhausted when he gets home from work too. He is a plasterer so some days are quite tiring. I bet your hubby feels like that most of the time, but parenting is exhausting too but in a different way, mentally I think. Those cookies look so nice and the tea party sounds like fun, havent been to one in a little while now, lol!
ReplyDeleteYep...I feel the guilt too, Scott goes out laboring in the Army field all day. But our work is hard too just in a different way!! And we never stop....
ReplyDeleteLove the pictures, those cookies look yummy and the pigtails oh my adorable!
I think it's not so much about traditional gender roles, but who is where and doing what at the time. When I was working from hom, I cooked dinner every night and did the household chores. bit now the mister is on leave, he is doing the fair whack of work around the house and still driving me to work in the mornings!
ReplyDeleteAnd I think it is a woman's natyure to feel guilt. I have spoken to a lot of women about it, and I don't know why it is, but we are really very good at feeling guilt and making sacrifices. it's like it's in our genes or something.
I'm home from work today because Ella's got gastro.
ReplyDeleteIf she's still home tomorrow, Dan will stay with her because I have stuff on at work I can't get out of.
We (all of us) juggle best we can, especially while our kids are little.
No need for the guilts.
But I guess if the guilts are there, you are doing the best thing by talking it over with Bren.
Aaaah. That's better.
Andi :-)
PS Feel free to send some of those cookies my way. My waistline says 'no' but every other fibre of my being says 'Hell, yes!!'
Hope you had a lovely tea party! Very cute!
ReplyDeleteHow great for the guys to come in and have yummy food ready for them. Sounds like you guys are doing a really good job :)
Here, we consider ourselves a team. He does his bit, working bloody hard in the mine, and I do my bit, home with the kids and managing the house. Each of us is just as important as the other. Because he can't do his job, providing for the family, if I'm not doing mine and vice verser. No guilt, just hard work. Unless I blow the fabric budget, then I feel bad lol!
It is a teamwork thing - I agree.
ReplyDeleteThe way I see it he works in the office and I work in the home - different roles and it has, a little unexpectedly, happeed to have fallen along traditional gender lines for us too.
I think each of you are doing important work and the importance of rearing a future generation of well-rounded and balanced people should never be underestimated.
Hooray for you both!
It sound like the perfect arrangement. If man needs feeding and he is just to dam buggered to do it him self...then you have to look after him. I do the same, mum did the same and nanna did it before her. Its a part of keeping all the balls in the air!!
ReplyDeleteoh what a lovely tea party you attended! beautiful job it is, but we both know how hard it can get.
ReplyDeletei think females have it inbuilt to feel guilty about things whereas men...don't care, they don't even know why we feel the slightest bit of guilt. as long as everyone is contributing to building a happy, loving family then it's all ok!
you are doing a fabulous job ♥
I love your second last pic with the kids playing on the trampoline in the background - great photo!
ReplyDeleteAt first when I saw the tea party plate I thought that was the lunch you made and I couldn't work out what they would be eating. Then I realised Pepper had made it for you. Lucky you!
ReplyDeleteI know it's all been said in the previous comments, but I have to say I feel the same sometimes too. What is it with Mums and guilt? Let's face it, we know we shouldn't feel it, when you look at how much time is devoted to other people and not to ourselves. But it just hangs in there, that nagging, nibbling sense of guilt.
ReplyDeleteHope you enjoy hanging out with your little one today!
xo
I think it's fantastic that you have the conversation. And you know what? I also think it's great you have it every year. Things might change along the way and if you keep coming back to the conversation no-one will take each other and your roles for granted.
ReplyDeleteThat tea party looks lovely.
I waver between the guilts because I don't get enough housey stuff done, and irritation that I do too much. I suspect neither is fair! I also get rankled because doing traditional gender specific jobs doesn't sit well with me, until I remember to remind myself that I've chosen to do this for now and that's very OK! Though I did the mowing the other day while my husband looked after the little one - that felt good ;-)
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