Why is it that I can't set out to do one thing without getting distracted by something else? On my good days I call it multi-tasking. On my bad days I'm scatterbrained and easily bored.
Like, thinking of ideas for this week's ramblings, I came across an article about equally shared parenting, an American (of course) concept where every responsibility is split straight down the middle.
The journalist and her husband put the concept into practice for a week, sharing such things as housework, childcare and working hours equally. They concluded it didn't really work. No surprise there. But it mentioned a "toolbox" on www.equallysharedparenting.com where you could calculate the division of household chores to see who wins ... I mean to work out the distribution or something like that.
I went there, it was all too complicated (and I know who'd come out in front without the calculator anyway) but I browsed around for a while. Marc and Amy Vachon, the advocates for ESP (and there has to be a pun there somewhere) had some interesting reviews of books which looked at the concept and other parenting related issues.
I'd read a couple of them over the years: The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women (Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels; 2004); and This is How We Do It: The Working Mothers Manifesto (Carol Evans; 2006) - the title of which is somewhat a play on Allison Pearson's hilarious 2003 novel, I Don't Know How She Does It - a book that all working mothers should read.
I liked the idea of Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety (Judith Warner; 2005) and the review highly recommended it. I got bored and went to Amazon to check it out, but was distracted by a title under the people who bought this book also bought bit - The Three-Martini Playdate: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting (Christie Mellor, 2003). That's my kind of book. And Mellor's written another couple as well: The Three-Martini Vacation (not sure if she advocates drinking and driving) and We Were Here First, Kid: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting. There was a couple of other books which looked good too: Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay: And Other Things I Had to Learn as a New Mom and Naptime Is the New Happy Hour: And Other Ways Toddlers Turn Your Life Upside Down, both written by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor.
There was another one written by a Muffy someone .. but I was bored again ... I just remember it because I thought her name was cool.
By this time it struck me that perhaps I should start thinking about what to write. Deadline looming and all that. I couldn't write about parenting books twice in a week, could I? I still had no idea. And even though I'm a list writer and "write Motherload" was right there on my list, I was avoiding it, avoiding the list in fact.
I've been doing that a bit lately. Avoiding lists. Avoiding the dust gathering and the ironing that needs to be done. Avoiding planning what's for dinner. Bit harder to avoid the husband and the kids and the people here who make the deadlines. I feel as though I need a week to catch up. A week where everyone can stop in some Twilight Zone-ish stillness and let me go about my business and get things done so the world is back in equilibrium ... I wouldn't even care that I had to do everything, just let me get things done ...
Now what was I talking about ....