In a household of 5, its not uncommon… nor is the rage I feel about it
(rage you ask? that seems- intense, no?)
The actual sensation is central, north of my bellybutton, just south of my ribs. it wants to move upwards, maybe all the way out into a loud “motherfucker!” but its not even 7 am, and I just need a spoon, so I wash one, mumbling to myself about how many times ive already done dishes this week, looking around the wrecked kitchen, wondering how there can already be no clean spoons.
underneath it, the spoons are irrelevant. in an episode of carpal tunnel, possibly wisely designed by my body for just such occasions, washing more spoons is more work than usual, so the feeeling of “id rather not” or “someone else can fucking do this (“for once!” says the snark in me, but really thats ungenerous, even if it feels that way) has escalated.
for some the various contexts may be useful, though everytime I hear someone say one of these things I feel bristly about that too: the rage isn’t new, its just- finally got airtime in the midst of 3 almost grown children, capitalism and not wanting to talk about my family out loud. (to be clear I am talking about me here, and any inferences made from that about anyone else in my family would be absolutely wrong.)
but heres the thing: i’m not ragey AT any of my children, and if I aim it AT my husband, I just feel big sad. my lack of spoons, though technically they couldve helped with, are not their fault. (not mine either, luckily ive finally absolved myself of not “raising them right” so theyd have done it already- and, well, I didn’t raise my husband, but we have been together almost 19 years so, in lots of ways ive trained him too (and he me, i’m not the ‘trainer” in the house, just the recognizer of human behavior.)
Q used to say I “lawyer up” for people, and hes not wrong: heres the infantilizing truth about how my mind works:
Well, T doesn’t make any dishes (its true he uses one cup and washes and puts away any bowls he uses immmediately after.) Mainly bc he doesn’t like being accused of things. He was accused of something he didnt do in preschool and has generally adopted an “if I stay over here and dont need anything” way of being… (I find this may possibly be endemic to the “nice” men?) We could “unpack” or rather, like in the olden days “discuss” that too, but for. now…
L is very busy- he works fulltime, spends countless hours driving his gf to and from work before and after his own job, and drives R places when we need him to. hes also the first to ask me if I need help, and to do a chore without being asked, or without complaint when we do. Hes keeping his mental state mostly above water it looks like lately, even though its tenuous, he seems to be doing the best he can.
R, well, she does leave a lot of sihes everywhere all the time… but she also is the one I ask to do the dishes the most… but shes also working on growing her capacity between work and school, definitely has a “touch of the tism” as they say (though everyone in our house would be considered “neurodivergent” byt he modern categories) and shes…a she, and, well, I, the other she in the house, feel a lot of ways about our tendency to do the communal ish: she cleans the shared kids bathroom, buys shelving and toothbrush holders and washes all the strawberries and bakes cookies and goes to the farmers market with me and, well, gets pretty pissed when shefeels shes being disproportionately asked to do stuff… and as the Black woman in our house, I am NOT the one to dismiss her feeling on that. because shes not wrong.
And Q: well with him i’m less gracious, and i’ve got various reasons for that: I didn’t birth him, and he needs to figure out how to do both his own stuff and household stuff, bc after 20 years of me doing that, hes got to learn or wevre gonna need a rethink… but hes got his reasons too: he was raised to “provide” for his family, and if history is any pattern, hes going to actually work harder when he thinks hes not adequately doing that… and because, well patriarchy (see above) he has not been trained that “supporting theb household” comes in many different forms besides monetary, all of which are not only crucial and valuable, but absolfuckinglutely essential: like eating, and, you know, making sure toilets are clean so we don’t start the next pandemic…
I tell myself I didn’t train him well, and after a massively traumatic childhood, and issues around being Black and feeling like a housekeeper (I get it, I mean of course I cannot understand it, but it took me 18 years for him to start to be able to hear I felt my own version of that as a woman without it becoming oppression olympics, which, on behalf of my daughter, i’m not fucking doing with him.) I just… understood and well, I figured I was the one with the spoons and knew how to wash them (I did kick myself for somehow not being better at teaching everyone to wash spoons since thats a lot of what ive done for a living for 20 years)…
But now, as hes 47, ive been “winning the bread,” and not always easily through a lot of issues, and that seems to be endlessly needed for things like broken down cars and supporting family members who can’t sort out how to make enough for themselves in this economy… or ridiculous out of pocket healthcare and insurances and and…
We are living at the very moment inside the system where its effects on us could break us…
But I always think: if we can’t do this here, with the resources we have, how can anyone do it anywhere?
I thought the same thing about racism in Howard COunty MD: a city built specifically to close the gaps in economics,ethnicity, etc… with the diversity, the money, the theoretical political will? If we cant shift our 9:1 arrest rates here, where can it happen?
If we can’t sort our spoons, here in my kitchen, where we have the money, the intersections, the skills to grow our capacity… and yes the history, thr trauma, the neuro- ways of being…
What can I possibly expect of our world leaders?
The difficulty comes when I reason: I know how to wash spoons, they are doing the best they can… instead of recognizing that me washing all the spoons IS NOT HELPING ANYONE.
So then I go back to work, because everyone (I start with org leadership bc they have a financially vested interest and can pass the skill along across teams of people quickly and effectively- our culture, like it or not, is largely shaped by our work cultures. so we startt there) needs to know how to wash spoons, and if everyone learns to do it at work: they don’t pay a therapist for it (if they even had decent enough insurance or cash to get in with a reasonable one) and their family can learn it- or at least benefit from that parent having spoon washing capapcity.) AND: we end up with more spoon washers in positions of leadership rather than the reactive critters we got in too many official places right now.
(I’m gonna ask whomever that is in the kitchen to do it, and remember that their lack of spoon washing has nothing to do with how much they love me or appreciate “all that I do,” but that the repetition is how we create new patterns. Here and everywhere. And it doens’ “take time” to interrup that pattern in me, in the kitchen, in this very moment. and the next. And I can do it with love and compassion- because otherwise whats the purpose of abolition if i’m policing myself and those I love most?)