A Man Needs A Maid

There are times when I am jealous of the era of the housewife. Firstly, I don’t even know if there was a real era of the housewife as I imagine it or if it’s a perception I have due to popular media. Secondly, i don’t necessarily wish to have a housewife: I wish to be a housewife. I don’t like the idea of anyone having their pursuits limited or of being forced into a difficult and unappreciated role, that being I believe the prevailing perceptions of a “housewife.” What I am jealous of is the ability to afford a parent to stay at home and take on what is a full time job of just running a household. I believe I know one set of parents who do not both work full–or nearly full–time jobs. I would like running my household to be my day job and then I can pursue music outside of that. As it is now, I work a full time job, I try to keep a household from crumbling into total disarray, and I try to pursue music. And so I feel mostly unsuccessful and frustrated in all three areas.
I realized the other night though, if I could afford to pay someone for some kind of relief from one of the daily duties, I would hire a cook. On the surface, paying someone to make your meals seems like the least necessary and most excessive choice over say, a maid or a nanny. The realization came to me the other night, having sat through the boys’ swim lessons, while waiting for them to get dressed. It was nearly five thirty and by the time we would get home and I get dinner together it would be pushing six thirty. I try to have them in bed, lights out, by eight if possible, eight thirty for sure. Ideally, there’s enough time after dinner to clean up the kitchen, etc so that when they’re finally in bed I don’t have to deal with a complete cluster fuck in the kitchen (this is almost always the case). Dinner is best had between five thirty and six, meaning preparation is done by five, maybe a little before depending on how ambitious the meal is (and it’s rarely very ambitious at all).
The boys are vegetarian–Lisa is as well; I am not–and I want them to eat well, so these are two complicating factors. If I didn’t really give a shit what they eat it would certainly make things easier. And, I don’t necessarily want to eat the exact same thing all the time so I am always trying to mix it up a little, though we do eat an unhealthy amount of pizza and burritos. Either way, I figure the amount of time involved surrounding making dinner at home to be in the area of two hours, sometimes more, from the prep to the meal to the clean up. And that is a big chunk of time at the end of the day that is totally exhausting.
There are certainly things I could do to make dinner go more smoothly–certainly if I were a better cook, for one–such as making a weekly menu. That is difficult too and really not the kind of thing that comes naturally to me. I have worked at it, but since it’s difficult, I have yet to be successful. Neil Young says a man needs a maid: I want a cook.
(I don’t necessarily have a photograph to correspond with the post, but looking at past posts, the ones sans photographic accompaniment seem–to put it bluntly–unimportant and just plain boring. So, here you go. It is children eating–or after eating, I guess–which is loosely related, though it’s at a nearby pizza place that shall remain unnamed because the pizza sucks. But, I like the place. And, it was a real nice afternoon when my girlfriend Melissa and I took Eban, Madee, and her daughter Ida to the park and then walked over for pizza. Ida–who has a little crush on Eban–put her hands up very close to him and signed “I love you”, to which he responded, “Will you get that out of my face?” So sweet. This is right after and Eban is uncomfortable and probably about to say, “Dad…” in a slightly sweet, annoyed voice).