One emotional need we studied last week in our marriage
class was Domestic Support: the need, often felt more by men, for home to be a
safe and stress-free place to return to at the end of the day. The author
writes, “A man’s fantasy goes something like this: His home life is free of
stress and worry. After work each day, his wife greets him lovingly at the door
and their well-behaved children are also glad to see him. He enters the comfort
of a well-maintained home as his wife urges him to relax before having dinner,
the aroma of which he can already smell wafting from the kitchen. Conversation
at dinner is enjoyable and free of conflict. Later the family goes out together
for an evening stroll, and he returns to put the children to bed with no hassle
or fuss. Then he and his wife relax and talk together, watch a little
television, and, at a reasonable hour, go to bed to make love.”
Both of us cracked up reading that. A typical night beings
with me texting “Eric is having his second tantrum. Do you have an ETA?” He
comes home and I’m arbitrating a dispute between the older two. The kids are
all half-fed or being fed at different times; our dinner consists of random
bites of their leftovers. He takes Elijah off my hands and heads upstairs to
change. We try to persuade and bribe the kids into a walk; when we finally do,
Eric’s feet can’t stuff into his frog boots in the onesie pajamas he refuses to
change out of, and Ellie doesn’t want to wear a jacket. We do some educational
activities, and enter the bedtime routine, which looks something like this. By
the time that is over, and Elijah is nursed to sleep for the night, we finish
essential chores in the brief time we have before “a reasonable hour” has
passed.
At first I got a bit upset about this whole domestic support
thing—I work too some days, sometimes as long as he does, yet he’s supposed to
come home and enjoy this fantasy while I juggle three kids and barely get time
to change out of my work clothes or eat a bite for dinner? I’m supposed to do
the house chores, and childcare chores, and work, so he can feel good about
having his need met?
But then I talked with Dave more and realized I had thrown
myself into things with a typical too-perfectionistic task-oriented mindset—he
does have this need, but for him it is really about the home having a certain
atmosphere, and my having a certain mindset. It is about the home being a place
of peace, and stability. It is about me having a general, managerial awareness
of how chores are going, and expressing appreciation for the many chores he
does. It is about me communicating through my actions and attitudes that I
enjoy the kids, and the home. He doesn’t mind chipping in a lot. And we talked
about a few practical things we could work on, the main one being meal
planning, for healthy, tasty, balanced food (anyone interested in my posting
recipes?).
And that is where I want to be anyway. I want to be someone
who can take interruptions and tantrums and turn them into gospel moments. I
want to be someone who can say hey, we don’t have it all together and it’s a
bit chaotic now, but it’s all okay. I want to be someone who can laugh and make
us all laugh. I want to be someone who can plan for the structure and resources
we need to eat healthy, move a lot, learn a lot, and create a lot. I want our
home to be a peaceful place for Dave, and our kids’ friends, and anyone else
who wants to visit. Ultimately, this only happens when I am doing well; when I’ve
had time for myself, time with God, and put time and priority into creating
this kind of home, not just a home that gets by. I think there have been some
good changes just in the past week—we’ll see how it goes.
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