A homemaker’s Search for affirmation: An Essay on Emotional jetlag

Being a homemaker on my way to published author is truly a jetlagging experience. It is one where I exist on my family’s schedule, I think surrounded by their mental vibes. And I am viewed by certain social strata in a manner significantly different than I see myself. I want to feel the “me” I used to know. I am emotionally jetlagged.

My husband reminds me that a marriage and a family are like running businesses. Company’s require identity. In my business that I call life, I have suffered from name change fatigue for almost three decades. The mutation occurred in the metaphorical sense. As I transitioned to new environments, roles, circumstances and status. My life vocation is unlike the 40% of boomers who held the same objective reality their entire essence, I exist constantly changed. Multisyllabic. Complex. I exist as Thomas Aquinas expanded on Aristotle. "My essence and quiddity is the complete essential determination of me.” And so I must fumble through life creating my own sense of affirmation.

***

Gruffily dressed with his scruffy chin and olive colored explorer tee, my husband shuffled around the sink washing serviceberry’s while the oven perfected a cream cheese custard, I stood in the kitchen, exhausted from my day spent bouncing from video editing and jetlag research, to child care, to house management (yes, we both take part in food prep). All while processing the impending changes about to affect my family. The onset of the mom-managed Summer Schedule. But truly, my biggest worry was about my past. Well, at least being able to prove it.

***

While my kids dove into the 80 degree pool, showing off the skills they’d perfected in a low-competitive setting during the school year, I sat with my slightly shattered iPhone searching the newspaper archives with my mom’s Enoch Pratt Free Library card number stored on one of my many iPhone text threads.

Every so often my phone overheated so I set it down in a shaded area. Cueing my fellow mom friend I was available to chat.

500 articles, I reviewed, and the one I sought had yet to show-up.

There was no room in the swimclub chat to share with her my predicament.

I knew there was no point in scorning myself for not saving the article when it was printed. I was young. The world was my oyster.

I was sure my name, embedded on the aluminum plate in the Utopia font (I’m guessing here, but Utopia was one of the ten

most popular newspaper fonts of non-digital newsmedia) of the Council Bluffs, Iowa, NonPareilnewspaper was an indicator of life-long success. My moniker appeared there at least annually due to my competitive piano playing. It also showed up in the yearly Who’s Who books of my yesteryears. At least that’s what the Who’s Who sales letters said. My parents never purchased one volume nor did they save one newspaper clipping. This consistent, evolutionary progress toward illumination made my younger, career-self convinced that such journalistic adornment would occur forever.

***

I looked at my husband and announced, “I haven’t been published or written about in over ten years.”

He heard my exasperation and asked, “why does it matter, you contribute so much.”

“Yes.” I replied. “But I live in a world where I give it all away.”

***

I view my life as one of priviliege. All my contributions beyond the home are volunteer. I live in a capitalist society. But I get paid for none of the work I do. 119 waking hours each week. The benefit is that I can be true to myself, our family, the world. Yet the fact that I earn no physical paycheck creates a societal disconnect of the value produced in the lexicon of free enterprise. I feel emotionally jetlagged about what my talents and treasures are worth.

By age 31 I was a Director, having found my calling in a highly specialized niche environment. I worked for a Polish Prince as the Director of Admissions at Baltimore International College, a culinary hospitality institution of higher education. My belief in the power of education was solidified, as was my understanding of aristocracy. I knew that like being a Prince, that to any hardworking person, academia can be a racket. Proving oneself and following one’s heart is always the code to the entrance gate. We don’t have to start out being “great.” But high levels of status can be reached when we are willing to take on the risk of negativity and try. For me, the jump shot I am working toward includes being a better person than I was the day before. Showing my kids that women can work too and that we all need a purpose, beyond a personal one in life. That means practicing the skills I want to perfect. Independent of what and how the external world tells me to do it,

***

After three years of volunteering independent of the group and one year on the association Board, I was elected President of my neighborhood association. My strategy was to reinstate the organizational structure required to make it run more harmoniously. I was used to developing systems and structures.

I sat in the signature 10x10 glass walled bank office with three well-meaning older and male volunteer friends. I had been the one who connected each of these high-level-executive-homeowners living in our neighborhood to this place.

We were signing our names to act as representatives of thousands of dollars accrued from our neighbors. I announced that I will put “writer” on the employment section of the signor form. My neighbor who I adore but understand his family journey with poverty, looked to me and told me that my paid email address and my blog were not enough, I needed to put “homemaker” on the form. I did not have to listen to him, but why argue over something I knew the answer to. I knew how I spent my time.

***

Many perceive that my entire value comes from receiving a genuine “I love you, too” at bedtime. That’s part of it, but just like a traditional workplace it includes growth, like observing from afar when my kids choose well balanced foods. It also includes externalized affirmation, a call from a fellow parent about how kind my child was to theirs. Contrary to popular beliefs on parenting and domestic work in general, all these actions occur because of research and newly acquired knowledge. I constantly turn to experts. But I turn to experts because I want my children to grow up to be independent of me. Able to follow their hearts and develop a career where they exist independent of me or what I give them. A full existence where they find a career that feeds their souls and their wallets. You see, I understand that love exists everywhere and it is a foundational block of building success.

Prior to staying at home, at work, the word “love” mentioned to me from a coworker felt like the beginning of inappropriate boundary crossing in search of domination that forced me into a very uncomfortable corner. The inability to express love in a creative professional manner is what I seek to change. Appropriate choices are expected in a work environment, but no one knows what occurs behind closed doors unless we speakup. And kindness to ourselves and to others in the forty hour work week? It was viewed as an inability to confront, an aire of laziness or as a conniving strategy for alliance building. I observed traditional worklife to be about the individual. Hence, homelife and career world never intersected for me.

Having been a powerful force in the career world before entering these new and difficult to understand stages of life, I existed in an imperfect world. But it felt good because I was surrounded by multiple forms of affirmations. I thought I was as Daniel Pink would explain it, an intrinsically motivated employee. Now, as a stay at home mom and a writer trying to emerge as published author, I exist often times in a world that lacks external conviction. But I believe it is because I feel jetlagged from the constant movement of wrongful assurance. I moved so fast, my emotions were jumbled and disorganized, as occurs to the body during jettravel which unbalances the endocrine and autonomic nervous systems that fuel the body’s regulatory communication systems.

Much of what I do is new to me. Research in the January 2022 edition of Cognition proves that when we are learning new concepts, we shy away from learning because of the perceived negative consequences. But if we are willing to brave negativity, as parenting has taught me to do, we should treat our minds like those of children. Meaning, we should learn a lot of new concepts at the same time. According to a study at University of California-Riverside, reported by Science Daily on July 17, 2019, when adults aged 58-86 learned three or more new skills at once, their cognitive ability was similar to adults thirty years old. I may have to fight self doubt resulting from a lack of peripheral support. Because as a homemaker, volunteer and writer, I expose myself to negative experiences and constant learning, but at least I am staying physically young by doing so. Youthfullness or flexibility to respond is not a bad exchange for affirmation.

At the beginning of my homemaking journey, volunteering for organizations and causes that other people developed were the answer to my own happiness. I felt as a director and a mother, I did not have time to give back to others. My ability as a volunteer was parallel to the praise I received in the work environment. My reward was a request for more of my time, general gratitude, the adoption of my ideas or a more harmonious community. Herein layed part of my conundrum of jogging down a non-traditional career path. If I considered my winnings from volunteer work with those of a forprofit environment critically, they were alike. The same accolades I received when I worked for someone else were the same rewards from participating freely with nonprofits.

But now, I work to better larger masses which starts with myself, my family, and my community. It also begins with sharing my work without charge. I ask for and receive a lot of feedback. In fact, much of it I pay for. But I do this not for competition or notoriety. I do it for self advancement, Though, now as I am trying to get published I need to keep track of my accomplishments.

Unfortunately, the ones others kept track of when I was working I may not find. I may not find the feature article I so easily attained the level of as a result of my childhood music career. In fact all the music reviews that should exist on spinrecords.com’s archives most likely do not. Spinrecords.com no longer exists. I am not even sure where to search for the “Baltimore Family” article I published. Nor the proof of the gallerywatch.com Addy Award I helped my advertising team win. Technology took a leap in my lifetime and in some respects I could consider myself behind. It I know it is difficult to trust the score keeper if she is not impartial. All too often, I have to self promote. But I also believe there are other examples that legitimately prove my non-traditional experience with writing. They allow you, the reader to keep the score card.

Instead of peer accolades during team meetings, bonuses, crystal clocks and finished newsletters that everyone was excited to receive (okay, I still write newsletters, just not as fancy; but definitely well-received), I now rely on myself for affirmation. I am the CEO of most of my life and the COO of my family. Everything I do must feel good—writing, web design, running the neighborhood association, managing my family.

I need to be in touch with myself to know how good feels. Just like my parenting journey, my writing journey has occurred as a result of nontraditional teachers—my former writing coach, Margaret Osbourne, John Dedakis our mistery writing, CNN editing editor, Jenny Grenier of New Jersey and her book club, freelance writer, Susan Glenn. And reflection and self analysis. I know that researching, synthesizing and creating in hopes of easing suffering is not just my favorite part of my day. It is my passion. And for the past decade, it has been my purpose.

This journey is self guided. Not self taught. Much like the inventors of yore existed. I am like Guglielmo Marconi, the first to

connect the world through radio signals. According to History.com, “In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech . . . Marconi who was much more a tinkering engineer than a scientist freely admitted he didn’t understand how his invention worked.” Marconi did not take the straight path. He was not formally educated to do what he did. He however had passion. And he changed the world.

As a child, affirmation occurred, I never truly sought it out. And I was comfortable being seen by others. I was encouraged to do what I enjoyed. I figured out I liked piano at age 4, and so I became successful at what I practiced. My daily hour of rehearsal brought out my emotion of musical story telling and led me to competition. I enjoyed the feedback and the judgement from experts. I always placed second behind a student I knew who put in more effort. I was happy with my balance.

As a homemaker, I try not to be in competition with others. The lack of judgement creates peace in my world. By not being at war with others or myself, I am able to focus on winning with my home life. Identifying levels of importance and a guiding force has to start somewhere. The absence of sport allows me to maintain sight of that which is of highest importance to me at this time, my family—we will only have this grounding/building opportunity of togetherness for so long. I am lucky, but it’s only because I paid attention when my life was not.

At the age of fourteen, I learned a very important lesson from my father about balance. He trusted my mother to do the primary caretaking. He was deciphering how to help disadvantaged children while leading a career that was financially safe and responded to his good natured aspiration of making the world a safer place. He competed with the value structure of our community. He was publicly asked to leave his position. This happened on multiple occasions and was always in the media. From what I learned of his departures, they were always the result of the John Lewis type trouble, “good trouble.” But so many of these situations left me averse to seeking out broadscale exposure. This realization explained to me my desire for years not to compete. My doubt was unresolved emotion.

The term emotion is more complex than its childlike colloquialism presents. There are myriad definitions and most of them are truly not the same. Wikipedia has an incredibly long entry on the subject. Sixteen topics for content and 150 works cited. According to an entry published first on September 15, 2018 in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “But it is surprising that throughout much of the twentieth-century, scientists and philosophers of mind tended to neglect the emotions—in part because of behaviorism’s allergy to inner mental states and in part because the variety of phenomena covered by emotion discourages tidy theorizing.” The Stanford Encyclopedia states that emotion can cause physical changes as well. To me emotion is a form of processing internal movement of external forces. My mind leaps to jetlag.

This desire to move away from emotion is one held near and dear to society. Even women in the workforce, are suppressing emotions. It appears to be a societal situation. But I believe all this storming we see in the news today is the onset of a change.

The relief of my anxiety by following my emotions are now my strongest guiding force. The reason I feel emotional jetlag about my life as a homemaker turned writer is that I am one to cause people to feel. And because of that, I know that it is difficult for many of my working friends to be unable to consider what I do as work. It is not that it is not work. It is not that it is unimportant, it is that I am going about earning a living in a manner much different than what most people view as a plausible method for advancement. My existence forces people to reexamine theirs and their priorities.

To put my family first is something many of my working girlfriends have been unable to do. Not to say they don’t do it sometimes and that the intensity and presence they provide when they do get involved is massive and memorable to their children. It is just to say that their schedule of living is dramatically different than mine. And so, I receive little to no affirmation from my working peers for what I do. As long as what I do does not carry accolades, titles and roles attached to it, my role finds difficulty existing in traditional, capitalistic terms. And so, just the way we do with emotions, when things are difficult, we attempt to treat them as simplistic or not of value.

Scientists used to believe that only one emotion was felt at one time and that it was independent of fixed beliefs. This philosophy is evolving. As a mother, I can tell you that I can be incredibly bothered, angry and annoyed by what my child does. But in that same moment I can truly love my child. Which leads me to a rational response of realizing who they are and how to respond to their behavior as I exist in the role that I am in.

Many new studies out there prove that the emotions people feel are resultant of how they frame or view a situation. So an existing belief will actually initiate an emotional response. This information is so very different from when we learned about emotions as children. But nowadays, this is what we teach our children, Kids Frontiers is an amazing resource that explains the current thinking on the subject. People like us need to realize that times have changed, that new information exists. That the world is not flat. People like us who are no longer placing themselves in new situations and learning need to utilize our resources. And for people who are in the work force to assume that people like me are staying home all day watching Judge Judy and the afternoon soap operas while our kids are in school is a huge problem.

I remember being at a work cocktail party before becoming a homemaker and a physician telling me how simple-minded her nanny was. Perhaps she was right, but I chose to be a stay-at-home mother in part because I remember how provider driven my dad was and I saw how I copied that attitude when I ran multiple departments and sat on the executive team at one of the top country clubs in the nation. I did not have time to be present for my kids and I wanted them to remember me, not the nanny.

Homemakers are responsible for time management, schedule making, thinking creatively, responding consistently, communication, public relations, planning, event execution, developing and maintaining organizational structure, decorating, motivation, implementation, budget maintenance, food management and family management. And most stay-at-home mothers volunteer on top of this position. The most interesting part is that many of us do not enjoy many aspects of our job and so we are constantly exploring ways to make work fun or at least bearable and learning how to engage others to complete the work.

It is a common fallacy that homemakers have abundant amounts of free time. As is it that people who choose this domestic work are simple minded. A lot of what homemaking is about is relieving the suffering of others. And maybe ourselves. To me, that is a natural transition into the writing I have done.

My life as an entrepreneurial homemaker was often met with denial and public rebuttal. The emotional framework of homemaker and work from home writer share in a male dominated world an aura of no worth. The same was true in some respects for me as a hospitality worker. Before that I worked for a hospitality culinary college and ran various departments including college admissions. I believed in it. But I also knew that over-education was a real thing. We look to outwardly symbols a bit too much in America. They hide nothing once we connect with others. They do not change us and they only change one’s perception for so long,

We all move at different paces in life. And those paces are right for each of us at that moment. I often feel as though I exist in a different time zone. My discovered tools for affirmation are all based on emotion. Thriving to me is counterintuitive to the paycheck of the affirming, capitalistic existence. I now rely on intangibles to tell me I am moving in the right direction. My guideposts are now synchronicity or God moments, planning, consistency, attendance and my own ability to mentally balance all that I do without fatigue, frustration or falling off course. Internal resilience moves me forward.

I know my husband was right. Not only do I supply the world with “so much,” I am here as a game changer. So that you can too.