Bunchland

Meri Perra blogs about the challenges she and her partner face in trying to raise their girls with feminist values

The timeline of my life recently struck 3-5. I’m still waiting for the party. In the meantime, I’ve had the opportunity to grow as a person. Or feel less sorry for myself, so that’s something.

You what it’s like: First one family member gets sick. Your kids are almost always the germy culprits, the patient zeros of the household. Moms brave through the multi-coloured leaky snots, the pukes, the fevers and, worse, the infinite grumpiness. Oh the infinite grumpiness is the worst of all.

But once in a while too much snot and puke and grump is like kryptonite for even the super-est of super moms. This time, I got sick.

I got whipped out sick. As in, I can tell you what’s happening on Gene Simons Family Jewels sick, and that was on a good day. And that wasn’t the day of “how the heck did this happen, it’s my 35^th birthday” day. That day sucked.

But hitting the big 3-5 has not been a total waste of time. For one, I’m still alive. That’s awesome. So I’m taking it as a sign of good luck, that having that crappy of a birthday has got to be good omen. And I’ve even learned from the experience.

Lesson # 1 – My kids have good hearing. I lost my voice for several days, and it turns out, my kids could hear me just fine. If anything the two little preschooler monkeys in our household listened better to my squeaks than they listen to my regular voice. So here is what I realized: those times when, after being ignored by my 4-year old for the tenth time in two minutes, raising my voice does nothing to get her to listen. It’s not about volume, it’s about attention. I probably should have realized this before, since yelling has never worked in the first place. But it turns out, I needed to lose my voice to remember how to use it.

Lesson # 2 – Moms need taking care of. Check this out: My stepmother, a woman who works at least six days a week and has her own teenage son to care for, heard about my pathetic state. So what did she do? Whip up a heavenly squash casserole, grab Vicks vaporub and come over with my dad in tow. He watched the kids while she massaged vaporub in my chest, back and throat, and wrapped me in layers and layers of scarves. Did I mention my stepmother is a talented reflexologist, and gives killer massages? It was a half hour of bliss. The next day, my dad dropped off a jar of garlic, onion and brown sugar that had been marinating overnight, also from stepmom. He said to drink all of it, and told me to stay put while he fetched the kids from daycare. Wow.

The drink was completely disgusting. And I was better the next day, strong enough to take care of the little ones as the Nasty Bug hit again.

Lesson # 3 – There isn’t a lesson # 3. Except that I learned Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed finally got married, but that’s not much of a lesson.

I am better off for learning that raising my voice does nothing for me, or my kids, and that even super moms need to be taken care of once in a while. It’s only two things, but that’s two things smarter than when I was a youthful 34, so it’s something.

Next time dad or stepmom get sick, they’re getting some love. I owe them.

Meri Perra is a community worker-turned-journalist living in Toronto’s Riverdale neighbourhood with her partner and two daughters

Photo by tommy.chang via Flickr