It Ain’t Easy Being Today’s June Cleaver

Not easy at all. Which I’ll admit, surprises me. When I finally had the oppurtunity to be a stay at home wife and mom, after ten years of working, I was thrilled. It’s all I ever wanted to do. Don’t get me wrong, I had a few jobs I really enjoyed. I just couldn’t keep up with working, keeping a house together and cooking all at the same time. I felt like a failure pretty often actually. For those women that can do it, I applaud you. It’s just not me. I need to focus on ONE thing, it’s just the way I’m wired.

When the Man enlisted in the army, that brought with it my chance to not work anymore.  My chance to be June Cleaver! She made it look so easy didn’t she? Yeah, well it was all lies. First off, a husband and kids leave stuff  EVERYWHERE.  If said husband is a soldier, your home quickly gets randomly decorated with camo and combat boots and a bunch of stuff you can’t find anywhere to put! But that’s not the real point here. So let me find it. There are certain advantages to working vs staying at home.

1. You have a boss.

Noone tells me what to do, when to do it or when I need to have it done by. Now, on one hand that is awesome. But I’m not a great motivator. In fact, I lean towards lazy procrastinator 90% of the time. Which means when I don’t feel like cleaning x part of the house. I probably won’t. And noone is here to kick my ass for it. Except me.

2. No year end reviews.

Noone is going to take me aside and show me where I’m excelling, and where I could use some extra work on something. I’m responsible for recognizing my own success and shortcomings, and dealing with them appropriately. Again with the self discipline.

3. The Social Aspect

I work alone. I don’t have the coworkers to chat with to make the day go by faster. I don’t have anything even remotely resembling socializing going on here unless you count talking to the dogs.  And this is where I go off on a tangent.

I live on an army post. There are always fuctions out there to meet and greet other spouses. Alot of them, like me, stay at home moms. You’d think we’d have things in common right? Not so much. What I usually run into are either wives that are 15 years younger than me, with very young children, who are way closer to June Cleaver than I’ll ever be. They bake, and craft, and have playgroups, etc. Or I meet wives 15 years younger than me that have no kids yet but are into the party scene.

My hobbies just get me blank stares and fake smiles most of the time. I play WoW, I enjoy photography. I blog. I would love to be able to actually have an enjoyable conversation with another spouse about those things but…have yet to meet one. I’m not saying it’s a requirement. Lord knows my closest friends in AK  I could talk about everything under the sun. But the difference is they didn’t look at me like I was a freak because I wasn’t crafty, and green, and girly, even with my missing June Cleaver gene. We were all experiencing the same thing together, and accepted each other for what we were.

There’s not much of that here. If I would go out and get a job, sure I’d probably meet new people, even ones I have things in common with. Because while work is work, it’s also a social setting. As a stay at home mom, it’s MY responsibility to seek people out, and form relationships. That isn’t easy. Not easy at all. However I’d be right back to where I started, good at one job, slacking at home. Which might be ok for me, but not so much for the family.

So June Cleaver lied. She made it look too easy. With this deployment coming up, it’s kind of scary not having my old support system here. Maybe I’ll find one, maybe I won’t. But I’ll always have my blog. And the dogs are pretty good listeners.