Occupation: Housewife

Transitioning from having a 9-to-5 job (or, more typically, a 7:30-to-4:30 job) to being a Housewife has been one of the hardest adjustments I've been through. As I've noted, this was at first a temporary assignment, which was how I talked myself into it. But as its become more and more permanent, I can't keep claiming I'm going back to work "in a few months."

Outlining the tasks.

My new coping mechanism has been to think of Housewife as an occupation. In my prior occupation, I used to have certain days I paid the bills and days that I ordered supplies; times of the day that I opened mail and that I devoted to making phone calls; days of the month that I reconciled accounts and that I ran payroll. So it's relatively unsurprising, I suppose, that I started organizing Housewifing the same way. I have laundry days, vacuum days, shopping days, bill-paying days. There's school drop-off time and pick-up time, dinner time, and now even writing time. This all makes it more palatable for me and lets me feel like I accomplish things. Without setting times and days for tasks, Housewife really tends to feel like a never-ending slog.

It's especially hard because there is no leaving work at work when you're a Housewife. You never get to walk out the door and drive home, leaving your pile of unfinished tasks behind. Nope, if you don't wash the dishes, they sit right on the counter and stare you in the face until you clean 'em. (And as soon as you do, another one pops up - it's like playing Whack-a-Mole - but that's another subject entirely).

So setting specific times for tasks - that keeps me sane.

But whose turn is it to do those dishes?

Before taking on the Housewife job, the Husband and I split a lot of responsibilities (and argued about them). I insisted that being Housewife made me Boss of the House, which everyone agreed to in the household. This means that pretty much every aspect of taking care of the house and kids is my responsibility, which is a bit of a hard pill to swallow some days. The upside of this is that I can assign tasks to the Husband (which, to his credit, he almost always accepts). Before, I saw this as getting the short end of the stick. Now, I choose to think of it as part of the job. The Husband makes the money; I make sure we have toilet paper. We're both contributing to having a nice life.

But all that responsibility, and the sheer quantity of tasks that need doing every day, can be exhausting.

All Housewives deserve some vacation time.

I realized I had succeeded at making Housewife my occupation when I was preparing to leave town to visit my parents last week. Just like I would do with any job, I moved some of my scheduled tasks around so that the important things were done ahead of time (in this case: laundry). And I knew there'd be some catching up to do when I returned (vacuuming). But for three days, I was Off The Clock! No laundry, no dishwashing, no breakfast-making, no planning dinners, no grocery shopping, no school pickup or drop off. (It was fabulous, by the way.)

It was during this vacation-prep time that I really felt I was succeeding at Housewifing.

Is Housewife a 9-to-5 job? No. It's usually more of a 7:30-to-8:30 deal. But it is a job, and I do think it "counts" as such. It takes a little time to get used to, but there are ways to grow through it, just like any position I've had.

So, when it came time to fill out my passport application, I didn't even have to think about what to put in the Occupation box...I wrote:

-A Real Housewife of the North Shore