Second shift
I am a full-time mother
And a part-time wife
The remnants of my love life
Are strewn about like confetti-cuts
Of paper that here-and-there scatter
I am but robotic-in-motion matter.
Methodically getting through the day
With a periodic table of chores
The desensitize, sacrifice and bore
What does tomorrow have in store?
Probably nothing,
Which means more of the same.
A toddler tugging at my hips
A baby nursing on my nips
I am equipped for maternity
My mind is of modernity
I am a walking casualty
With the malady of which
Jokes about marriage and motherhood are made.
I go it alone for 5, 6, 7, 8 hours a day
I work two times as hard
For twice as little pay
Multi-tasking and responding to needs before asking
Babies bouncing on a bruised lap
Too much touching and fussing
Papers rustling, mentally cussing
I am adjusting to being a means without an end.
Will my afterlife be amorous?
Can I find companionship beyond books,
Adulterers’ lusty looks,
The hue-and-cry of discontented children
Conceived without caution,
A schedule that has their father leaving me often?
I am scintillating
I leave a trail of sparks when I put on heels
But what good does it do
If I can never dance?
“My patience, resolutions and beliefs are tested to the limits – sometimes daily.”*
Right at this moment one of my challenges is the constant, tuneless whistling from my elder son. When my boys were babies it was getting them to sleep or trying to figure out why they were crying. On any given day now, it might be squabbling, fighting, teasing, screaming, shouting or rudeness. Who’d be a parent? We might well question ourselves after the event, but we can’t very well put them back! Just how we find those inner resources, how we constantly demand more of ourselves, how we keep marching up that hill with a smile on our face and gladness in our heart at the sight of our ‘babies’ is one of life’s mysteries.
* © from Being Mummy by Anne‑marie Taplin published April 2007