What I’ve Done For Men

In-between my two divorces my women’s group signed up to do a weekend challenge course in the mountains above Los Angeles where I was living.  Afterwards, I signed on to date the guy who ran the course, much to the amusement of the other women.  He worked at a drug rehab place up there; I was a writer who worked at home.  Somehow it seemed obvious to both of us that I should be the one to move if we were to ‘grow’ our relationship.  One of my daughters was in elementary school, the other in junior high; his daughter was in elementary school.  We both shared parenting with our ex mates. In my case, at that point, there wasn’t much sharing: the lion’s share of the job was mine; the shopping, all but two weekends a month, the cooking, the cleaning, the after school activities, even when it was his turn, etc. etc. Maybe it would be easier up in the mountains, I thought.  I leased my home for two years, paid for the moving van, found some kids to help him load the van, and down he came .  A few months into our live-in life together my older daughter said, “You seem to be working much harder now than you did when we lived in LA, Mom,” disappearing into her room to do her homework.   When I moved out with my daughters a few months later,  not only did he refuse to help pay for my move, he didn’t help.  I couldn’t move back to my home in LA because I had leased it for those two years.  When a friend said she was moving out of her apartment in Santa Monica, I jumped at the chance to get closer to home.  On one side  of the apartment our windows looked out on an apartment wall; the windows on the other side faced cement block.  We stayed there a year.  The day we moved back to our house, I had the pictures up on our walls by the time we went to sleep.  The reason I had more to do up in the mountains was because I took on cooking, cleaning, and food shopping because I ‘had more time’ – remember, I worked at home – and he had a job.  Not only was I doing all of this for my kids, I was doing it for him, and his.  Just thinking about it makes me hold my breath.  What was wrong with me?  Why was I trained to think all of that was ‘my job’?  Why did it take me years to realize the women’s movement was meant for women like me.  Young women today seem better off, but they haven’t been freed.  I watch them take on jobs that really aren’t necessarily theirs, just like I did.  Would they move cities, and expect to pay for the move themselves?  I don’t think so.  Hopefully my daughters have learned from my mistakes as well as my successes.  More on this another day.  I won’t be blogging for the next two weeks, but will return in the New Year.  Have a good holiday!  And let others do for you….