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"Women's
work is never done" goes the old saying. Women's work also, seems to me,
to be heavily oriented toward cleaning up stuff that comes out of other people
(or pets) in one form or another. Tina Faye told Jerry Seinfeld on a
recent "coffee date" that at her house "I am in charge of
feces."
I burst out laughing when I heard that, as it's all too familiar
to me, and, I'm sure, to women everywhere. At least, familiar to the kind of
ordinary women who don't have servants.
Back in
baby days, I was the caregiver--as the task is now called. Husband at work, Mom
at home, that's the way it was for some years. I cooked, cleaned, washed dishes
and clothes and wiped away spit-up and freshened adorable baby butts--which
become far less adorable when they are covered in you know what and need a good
wash and dry before you can begin to contemplate putting a diaper back on. In the meantime, the boys might also send a high pressure jet across the room, a hazard I (an infant care novice) learned about the hard way.
These days
it's just the usual housework--babies and their cute butts are long gone from
my life--but that doesn't mean my woman's work poop detail has ended. There are
still bathrooms and more particularly toilets that require not-that-pleasant
close up work. As I scrub, I often remember working as a waitress long ago in a
little restaurant where we had to clean the bathrooms after closing. The ladies
who didn't sit could make quite a mess. The gentlemen's room, though, could be
extra special sometimes, despite a sign over the hopper which admonished: "We aim to please. YOU AIM TOO
PLEASE."
Long ago
Besides
human clean up, there's cat clean up too, at our house. We have three cats, all
indoor these days, for their safety and for the safety of the local chipmunks,
squirrels, moles and birds. There are other outside cats around here devouring
everything in sight, but at least my three are no longer part of the general extermination. Our newest, Tony, is a small healthy young cat, but, I swear, this guy counts as at least two cats when it comes to his box
filling abilities. I may miss days at the gym, but as long as I have to lug kitty litter into the house and then back out again on a daily basis, I think I'm nevertheless keeping up with my weight lifting.
Whenever
I'm inclined to feel sorry for myself, I tell myself to imagine what the
"good old days" must have been like for women. Today, most of us have hot and cold running water in good supply; we have washers and dryers and laundry products
galore. But in the 18th Century this was not the case. A diaper change is the kind of day-in-a-life task a middle class woman might have to regularly undertake.
So here's a little slice of
A Master Passion, where Elizabeth
Schuyler tends the newest Hamilton baby, James. It's already a busy day when her sister Peggy visits unexpectedly.
The whining from the next room
suddenly grew to a wail. James, when his first grumbling summons hadn’t been
answered, was angry now. With a sweep of skirts, Betsy marched into the room,
scooped her howling son from his cradle and plumped herself down in a
comfortable wing chair. Her mother would never have undertaken such a task in
the good parlor. After all, with a new baby, the risks of spills from one end
and leaks from the other were high, but Betsy couldn’t bring herself to walk
another step. As a piece of insurance, however, she snatched up his flannel
wrap.
Unbuttoning her dress, she got
bellowing Jamie in place, experienced the sharp tug and the answering flesh
gone-to-sleep prickle of the let-down. Then, one end of the cloth pressed to
stem the flow from the neglected breast and the rest tucked strategically
around James, she watched her newest son’s jaw work as he mastered the initial
tide. He was round and fair, even balder than Angelica had been, but a similar
halo of red fluff had begun to rise upon his pink skull. As different in some
ways as the children were, there was a certain sameness in the general outline:
gray eyes, long heads, a kiss of red in their hair.
Betsy leaned back, relaxing into the
comforts of nursing, when she heard a knock at the door.
“Davie!” When she called out, James
startled. “Una! Gussie! The door!”
In stretching for the bell on the
end table, she dislodged James. He promptly set up a renewed cry at this
sudden, rude interruption of his dinner.
“Temper, temper!” Betsy rubbed his
open mouth—and the yell—against the nipple. She noticed, with amusement, that
his bald head instantly went scarlet with rage.
She decided to ignore whoever it
was. If they wanted in badly enough, they’d go around to the kitchen. Then she
heard rapid footsteps in the hallway, the sound of Davie running, followed by
voices. Soon, the parlor door opened and Peggy poked her head in.
“May I?”
“Of course, Peg. Heavens! I didn’t
know you were in town.”
“It was spur-of-the-moment. Stephen
is having trouble with Mr. Beekman and decided to come down and straighten it
out face to face. I thought I’d come too and see what’s in the shops. The first
of the London fashions are arriving.”
During this speech, her younger
sister settled on the facing sofa. She was very much the lady of leisure, in a
gown of peach satin layered over an ivory petticoat upon which hundreds of tiny
birds in flight had been painted. As she removed the long pins which held her
broad-brimmed straw hat, she revealed a wealth of chestnut hair.
“Davie says I just missed Colonel
Hamilton.”
“Yes. Not half an hour since he rode
off with John Jay and Cousin Bob Livingston. I confess I’m worried about what
will happen in the legislature. There are only nineteen men who are for the new
Constitution.”
“I am concerned, too, though I’ve
never really understood politics. Still, we’ve all had an education in the
science of government. Papa, for one, is absolutely relentless on the subject.”
“Yes, that’s all Alexander ever
talks about, too, either to me or anyone else.”
“Well, thank heaven there are women
to keep the day to day world going ’round.”
Peggy moved closer to get a good
look at the new baby. He was now happily gulping again.
“What a big strong fellow! I swear,
Sis, you’re as good at this as Mama ever was.”
Although their eighth anniversary
wouldn’t come until Christmas, James made the fourth little Hamilton. Peggy, on
the other hand, had carried only one, Stephen, the precious son and heir to the ancient
line of van Rensselaer. There had been nothing afterward but a sad string of
miscarriages.
The very elegant Angelica Schuyler Church, maid and baby
Mindful of her sister’s feelings,
Betsy simply said, “Thank you, Sis.” She sat Jamie up and patted his back. As
he slumped into her hand, his big eyes goggled.
“That one is going to take after Mr.
Hamilton for sure. Look at those blue eyes.”
“Well, perhaps. But our babies seem
to come fair and then darken up, all except for our Angelica.”
“Are she and Phil upstairs?”
“Yes.”
“Well, in a minute send one of your
girls to bring the darlings down to their adoring aunt.”
Tea came in, with Una’s thoughtful
addition of some fine English sweet biscuits that had recently arrived from
London, sent by Angelica Church.
“Shall I take James, Missus?”
“No, he’s quiet and you’ve got
enough going on. Where is Alex?”
“He be watchin’ Gussie scrub.”
“I’ll take care of Jamie,” Betsy
instructed, “but if you hear Fanny squawk, let me know.”
Peggy poured tea while Betsy laid
the flannel upon the upholstered sofa and then proceeded to quickly change
James atop it.
“You are a lucky girl, you know.”
Betsy looked up from wiping a pasty
yellow smear from Jamie’s cherub’s bottom.
Peggy giggled. “Why, I mean
Alexander the Great, of course. He’s a kind of knight of the round table in our
benighted modern age. Papa is quite tiresome on the subject.”
“True, but being the wife of
Alexander the Great isn’t easy. I mean, look.” Betsy gestured at the little
parlor with its few furnishings.
“Money isn’t everything.”
“Only to those who have enough.” Betsy wrapped the diaper up
carefully before setting it on the floor. “And I don’t think I shall ever get
used to living in this city. There are times when I do so envy you. Your
husband is with you almost all the time instead of riding off on crusades. Even
when Hamilton is at home, half the time he’s tied up in knots and might as well
not be here at all. Day and night are the same to him when he’s working. This
whole winter and spring it’s been nothing but those Federalist Papers..."
~~Juliet Waldron
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