WTF? Bacon and Face Painting

Remember when Daddy brought home the bacon and Mommy stayed home? Growing up as a little kid, that's the way it was. Granted, Daddy worked two jobs.

In the '50s, Dad worked. Mom stayed home, raised the kids, cooked dinner and baked, all while keeping the house nice.

In the '60s, the sexual revolution and women's lib changed everything.

In the '70s, more and more women became independent, working professionals just like their male counterparts. By the early '80s, the latchkey kids were coming home to empty houses, and then we dipped into a recession.

The women who were still stay-at-home-moms started to supplement their husband's pay with part-time jobs. This is when my mom would clean houses to help us stay comfortable. My mom went back to work full time sometime in the mid 80s. We had come out of the recession, and by the '90s, even more women had entered into the workforce... I remember being in High School and noticing that almost all of my friends parents both worked. I would venture to say that about 50% of both parents had full-time jobs, and another 30%  of the mothers had part-time jobs.
Now, in 2011, it's tough to struggle with one salary supporting a family. I don't know any couples who are married with kids, and not both working full-time jobs, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food on their plates. Except for us. I am lucky to have a wife who currently stays at home with the kids. I have an 18 month old, an almost 5 year old, and an 8 year old. Day care costs too much. Pre-school costs too much. It doesn't pay for my wife to get a job that's just going to be cancelled out by those costs. So, she stays home like those moms of yore and is actually raising our kids... What a concept!
She has a job. She has many jobs, actually. She's a mother, a wife, a pre-school teacher, and an extreme couponer. The last one saves us damn near $40,000 a year; that's a decent salary in today's economy! It could end up saving us nearly $60,000 yearly, if we play our coupons right. And she just started her own business as a Face and Body Painter.

Check out her site, she's awesome. All advertising aside, my wife is amazing, especially considering that she has, let's count, 5 jobs!
After being unemployed myself for 6 months, during which my wife worked for 3 months as a medical assistant, and consequently was fired for bogus reasons, I found a job that I hated. Then, only after I toiled day after day at a job that I absolutely abhorred, I found my current position (thanks to my wife's keen observation skills). I love my current day job. I love that my wife is at home with the kids. And we still struggle. But that's okay.
Hopefully, with her new venture, sometime in the near future, we will stop struggling. But there are always unforeseen dangers lurking in the shadows. It seems that every time we start to get ahead, we get taken back a few hundred steps. And there is no such thing as job security these days. Let's face it folks: inflation is still rising, interest rates suck, everyone's maxing out their credit, and the middle class is virtually gone.
I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess I'm just frustrated. But I am grateful that I have such a great wife! And I know better days are coming. Eventually, I will finish one of the screenplays that I've started to write.
I'm a college educated struggling writer. Funny thing is, that cliche used to mean something. Now we're all struggling [insert occupation here]! As a 35 year old father/husband, I should be getting ready to have a mid-life crisis. But I can't afford it! So I guess I'll just keep writing... And working at my day job... And promoting my wife's business.
ZD

My So Called Life?

I caught my wife watching re-runs of My So Called Life the other night. Okay, so I didn't really catch her; she watches them all of the time, and I usually end up watching them with her. But for my purposes here, I caught her! We both reflected on how we watched them in a completely different light back when they first aired, and we could remember exactly how we felt back then. She remarked how she remembers feeling exactly like Claire Danes' character. I began to think that that show really did do a great job of capturing the adolescent experience. And watching it today from the perspective of a parent, and a mature (sort of) adult, I see that the producers and director's really hit the nail on the head. Especially capturing the entire family dynamic, because now I identify more with the parents on the show. It's a shame that they cancelled it so quickly.

We then proceeded to watch the show Parenthood. Completely opposite end of the spectrum. It's a similar concept, but on a bigger scale with more of a focus on the parents, hence the name of the show... In this particular episode, one of the character's kids gets dumped by her boyfriend. Note that there was no cut and dry reason for the breakup. In today's terms we would say it's complicated. I could relate to the boyfriend's character. I actually empathized with the character, and felt sympathy for the female character. And all of a sudden, I felt myself getting a bit emotional, reflecting on former relationships of my own.

It's strange for me, because I was never dumped. I was never a Casanova, nor was I a player. I dated. I had some casual relationships. A few semi-serious relationships. Even had a couple of serious relationships before I started dating my wife. While reflecting on my past relationships, I realized a few things:

• Man was I insecure. I broke up with a girl because I figured it was only a matter of time before she dumped me, so I might as well just end it myself. 
• Man was I the jealous type. I broke up with another girl because I thought she was going to cheat on me, so I just ended it to avoid the impending infidelity!
• Man was I selfish, self-centered, and self-absorbed. And apparently a little dense, too. I went from being in a fucked-up, co-dependent relationship where I was selfless to a fault; to being single, carefree, indulgent and self-absorbed. I casually dated a girl who I really liked after the fucked-up relationship, told myself (and her) that it wasn't a rebound (because it was just casual). But really I just wasn't ready to give up my new found freedom from co-dependence, even when I realized I was falling for her. What I thought were her mixed signals were me just being an idiot,  and not realizing that she really liked me too.
• Man was I immature. Plain and simple. I needed to grow up. Not just in my teens-even in my early 20s. Especially in my early 20s. But who wants to grow up then? That's the time for indulgence...

I've gained an interesting perspective on that period of my life. The times that I was a self-loathing hedonist, I was dealing with a lot of issues. But I had to go through them. All of them. The horrible jerk that I was to those relatively innocent girls has vanished. He was a necessary evil stepping stone on my path to adulthood. I am not trying to justify who I was, or how I acted. But at least I now know why.

Emotional maturity didn't come easy to me, but that's another topic completely. Maybe me being an asshole somehow helped some of these girls figure out the type of guy they didn't want to be with... Well, we've all grown up  (for the most part; mentally I'm still 18 sometimes!) I guess this is my half-assed version of an apology to them.