My Struggle

By Zombie.
Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.

Not long after Christmas I got an unsolicited call from my father-in-law. He decided it was time to kick me in the ass for being unemployed. So I got a earful about how worthless I am, how I have no sense of responsibility for my family, how he'd "stood by long enough as I dragged his daughter and granddaughter on a 'downward spiral'" and must obviously be lazy as hell.

Not suprisingly, he's a hardcore republican and follower of bill o'reilly. Also not suprising, it must be something wrong with me in his diagnosis. There could not possibly be anything wrong with any outside circumstances. But, can't dwell on that. Obviously I'm not trying hard enough. So, everything wrong with our society is no longer just "out there" remote and inapplicable from my personal situation. It started because my wife, unhappy with just our recent cost-saving moves, got a second job shoveling snow that she worked a grand total of three times. She had a fantasy about driving a snow plow for many years, and she just went out and did it without really discussing it with me. The old man found out and blew his top, as though I was somehow happy to have my wife working two jobs while I had none.

I stay home with our daughter, which is full-time and a half, and I am stuck with this position because no one else can do it. Caring for children does not count as work in our society, but it has to be done and of course the same o'reilly worshipping crowd screams about "family values" if parents put their kids in daycare. Recently my wife was alone our daughter for three hours and was about ready to crack, the grandparents are similarly exhausted from a day with her. I have her all day, everyday and do not always get help on evenings or weekends because my wife works them sometimes and often has clubs and volunteering stuff on normal days.

So, I am very tired, very stressed, and now an even bigger loser than before. Some people fantasize about winning the lottery or just taking a vacation, I fantasize about being in a coma.

There, pity party over. Just for the hell of it though, how would this crappy situation look if I were a woman? Leaving that exercise unresolved, waste of time, it would just make me look sexist.