Right now is day 4 with the black eye that my daughter decided I needed. It wasn't intentional. We were snuggling down for the night and she decided to lift her head before rearing back at full force, into my face. My grandmother broke her nose due to a similar action on the part of one of my aunts, I believe. So at least it's "normal" for my family. And at least it's not broken.
I wore make-up over it to walk across town the next day to get Julia to her music lesson,which went pretty well. They're trying to get the kids to do a lot of different dances, or participate in the songs in different ways, and Julia is starting to get it. I still don't get why most of the other kids are so calm all the time. If it were upper class America, I would assume medication. It's not though, so maybe they're just better scheduled and run around to exhaustion before the class so they are not so full of energy. Who knows.
The next day I stayed home because I didn't want to put on make-up and my good friend Hana brought me groceries.
Yesterday, I had plans to meet a friend in Sendai and my husband had the day off. He volunteered to watch the kid I could go have a nice lunch, so that's what we did. It was amazing, but I had to run to catch the train and in my rush, I forgot to put on make-up completely, so my bruise was visible to everyone, but I didn't get stared at too much more than normal.
I'll have to dress it up for class tomorrow and the next day, but until then, I am okay.
We've been watching a lot of Netflix. Julia and I even started into Yokai Watch, which she loves for the beginning and ending theme, and the cats. I like it in general though I can't understand it all (and of course no subtitles for anime) but there was one weird episode we watch the other day about a fart demon thing. It's face was the upside-down heart shape of a butt, and if it affected someone, they would suddenly feel the great urge to release gas in the immediate vicinity.
I don't know that this is something most American kids shows would deal with, much less in this way, but that's Japan for you.
Speaking of Japan, I recently read an article by a Japanese housewife, explaining the virtues of being a Japanese housewife, all the hidden benefits of being at this tail end of the patriarchy. How misogyny can work for you.
I do get her main meaning, but I have a lot of other concerns here. Probably because I'm not Japanese. I was raised in a dual-income household. Our house was never spotless, and I was/am a hoarder so it really was never going to be, but we lived just fine. The animals we kept as pets were taken care of. It was the 80s-90s and the idea that a woman's only way to contribute to the household was to do all of the housework, budgeting, managing of things plus whatever work or hobbies she might enjoy outside of the house would have been insane.
My mom did manage a lot of the stuff, because it needed to be done, but not because some archaic social norm was pressing in on her.
There are hidden benefits to a lot of shitty situations. Children of alcoholics or the emotionally volatile can become natural peace-makers and emotional bomb-squads, because that's how one might survive the impending doom that is a too-drunk parent, about to lash out for some imagined wrong-doing.
Children who grew up in households where money was poorly managed may become their own powerful budgeting machines in adulthood as they saw the errors fiscal irresponsibility caused.
The list can go on and on, but that doesn't mean these situations were good. The ability to learn something from a shitty situation doesn't give honor to the situation so much as yourself.
There are many things severely wrong with this country, and American for that matter. I'm not saying Japan is alone in the "Please Fix This Country" department. But the blatant sexist, misogynistic bullshit is everywhere over here. The amount of housework required for one family to live normally is astounding, and the fact that many women are required to do this on top of anything else they might have going on is very one-sided. It does not teach people that a household is a dual effort system. Nope. It's a man making money and a woman cleaning house. Because that's the only format they will accept, and personally I find that rather disgusting. Men can clean, too. Women can earn, too. I am happy that we have just enough going on financially that I can spend time raising our daughter, I didn't marry this country. I only married my husband.
I suck at Japanese house-wifery. I really do. I am not good at dismantling the front of my bath tub to clean out the inside (apparently something I am supposed to do daily), or dismantling the air conditioner to clean what is inside of it. Hell, I don't even do the dishes or laundry every day.
Because I am American. I work hard, but I also give a fuck about my emotional health and cannot do all of the things with a two-year-old giving me black eyes and bouncing around the house all day.
I do what I can and usually feel like that is enough.
I am doing my best, and my kid is starting to talk in complete sentences (in English anyway), and my house isn't completely useless yet, and I am already exhausted.
And I am sure a Japanese housewife would look at all I do and call me lazy, because my husband has to manage the money and the bills, and my house is always a mess, and none of the advanced cleaning projects is every done or ever done well (either because I don't know how to or don't have the energy) meanwhile I am sometimes sad, fat, and tired.
So in the Japanese Housewife category, I am an utter failure. I'm also a novelist. I'm also an alright parent. I'm also keeping myself as sane as I can.
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