Random Thoughts Of A Productive Weekend Single
5 Comments Ryan Welton on Saturday, March 31, 2007 at 9:27 PM.
I'm listening to the Final Four right now on Westwood One, and it serves to rehash a blog entry from last week. I love radio.
Some 26 years ago, I recall listening to the great John Brooks, who I have since met at KOCO informally, call an OU win over Florida State in the Orange Bowl. I didn't own a TV as a kid until I was about 12, so I was left to my radio most of the time because when I was growing up, the man of the house dominated the TV -- not the kids.
That means we watched OETA. Like, all the time. That's terrific because now I love OETA and public television, as well as public radio.
Nowadays, parents give up control of the boob tube so their kids can watch what they want in hopes that they'll stay quiet long enough to keep their parents sane.
I say let 'em have the TV. I'm enjoying Florida-UCLA much more listening to Kevin Harlan, John Thompson and Bill Raftery than I would have if I had watched it. There is much more left to the imagination, much better analysis from the announcers and greater anticipation. It's not quite as passive as television, which I also appreciate.
The reason I'm not watching it, from a practical perspective, is because I have a ton of things to get done on weekends. I've found that the older I get, the better I have to manage my time.
A colleague at work was talking about her recent trip to a professional event when the mentor told the young professionals to beware of bosses who treat married folk better than singles, presuming that singles have no life while married people do. It's a premise that practically enrages me because it's completely illogical.
By "having no life," the premise of this discussion was that married people have a ton of things to do while single people can coast. The premise is not that there aren't positives to marriage; that clearly is true.
But, if you're going to be a single person and maintain an operational household, a social life, etc., you're going to have to manage your time way better than your married friends. Why? Shared labor. Simple as that.
A married couple does not make twice the mess of a single person, only about one and a quarter to one and a half times the mess, I'd guess. While married couples often have two cars and definitely two loads of clothes, they still share one space and one yard and one set of bills (most of the time).
I didn't have a role in this conversation the other day. I merely listened. Heck, I didn't really have that much of an opinion because I have never felt like any of my bosses treated me any differently than they did married persons. However, it served to remind me that I'm so independent at this point that I almost yearn a bit for the ability to be a bum. It is still a giant stressor for me to be disorganized and not on top of things. It happens often, but the older I get, the less I can allow it because frankly I need to avoid stress the older I get.
Speaking of stress, the past couple of days we've had mega storms in the Oklahoma City area, which meant that I worked like 15 hours each day. I manage a Web site that delivers news to Oklahomans, providing them print and video coverage of severe storms in the metro area.
By the time I got home Friday night (Saturday morning), I wound down until about 2:30 a.m. and slept until past noon. Considering I only get about six and a half hours of sleep each weeknight, I really need my weekend sleep. Whoever says you can't catch up on sleep is probably somebody who gets nine hours of zzz's every night. However, I'd love to be able to get just eight hours of sleep each night.
Alas, it's kind of difficult because I'm taking care of things that I should have done on the weekend. Time management is a pretty big deal to me, given not only my virgo nature but also my desire for organization and routine. I like order and structure, and while I am also quite spontaneous socially, I can't afford to be that way without maintaining a certain level of order and structure about 90 percent of the time.
It's another way in which listening to sports on the radio makes it such that I can keep up with games and get my stuff done. With television, I feel the physical need to stare at the tube because the analysis and play-by-play is done presuming I am watching. Radio is theatre of the mind, and I love it.
Gotta go clean the kitchen. See, I don't have a wife whose job it is to do that.
Kidding.
Labels: life
Ryan, you don't even know what you are talking about here!!! The whole thing with marrieds being much busier is the "with children" part! Then your optimistic 1.5 times the mess becomes 3 times the mess one adult makes, PER CHILD. When you factor in the homework assistance that most parents have to give their children, the soccer games, gymnastics, the scout meetings, the pressure of shopping for a family (kids outgrow their clothes and shoes about every 3 months), planning healthful meals, shopping for them, cooking them, cleaning up after them, etc. etc. When my husband and I both worked full time, we were busy, busy from dawn until 11:00 p.m. at night, every Monday through Friday. After we finally came to the conclusion that one of us should make "domestic engineering" their full time job, things improved greatly. When I was single, (long, long ago, I will grant you) I too remember being resentful of the married people (with kids) claiming that they were busier than I was, now I realize that they were right! However, you work multiple jobs, so maybe you ARE as busy as a parent, but with all of those jobs, perhaps you could hire domestic help? Just a thought;-) P.S. After you get married, if the two of you ACTUALLY split the domestic duties 50/50 then I will give you a standing ovation. Most men forget how to cook, clean,do laundry, mow the lawn, etc. after saying their wedding vows. Post-traumatic stress induced amnesia, I guess.
Children aren't a factor in this equation. They play no part in my premise. If they did, then the point would have to stand that bosses treat employees who are single mothers, for example, the way they do married employees -- and they don't.
In a typical corporate environment, single mothers, in my experience, REALLY get the raw end of the deal, not only getting no benefit of being married in terms of the perception of upper management but also being looked down upon. For example, if the married parent has a sick kid, the boss says, "Oh, that's too bad. Please, you need to go home and take cary of little Bobby," or whoever.
To the single mother, the boss often says, "Well, look, you decided to have the kid, now deal with it."
Again, my point is merely that whether it be in corporate America or socially, single folk will always have to work a little harder, not only in terms of perception but also in terms of reality.
BTW, Tamra, you said: "However, you work multiple jobs, so maybe you ARE as busy as a parent, but with all of those jobs, perhaps you could hire domestic help?"
I don't work multiple jobs. I'm not sure where you ever got that. Now, I have a lot of irons in the fire, way more than most people (songwriting, freelance magazine writing, etc., but many writers have these projects) ...
And, I'm not resentful of married people by any means for any reason. That's crazy. Not a chance; however, I will admit that your diatribe, honestly, kind of underscores the stereotype that could annoy me greatly. However, that your married is irrelevant to that point.
If you'll revisit what I wrote:
*** By "having no life," the premise of this discussion was that married people have a ton of things to do while single people can coast. The premise is not that there aren't positives to marriage; that clearly is true.
But, if you're going to be a single person and maintain an operational household, a social life, etc., you're going to have to manage your time way better than your married friends. Why? Shared labor. Simple as that. ***
That is a fact. I'll go back to my example of a single mother, who may or may not have some involvement from a father or father figure. At that point, the single mother has to do everything, literally, and likely on an income at about .60 to .75 of what her male counterpart makes, which can make it way tougher emotionally.
My point is primarily corporate, sociologically, and centered on housework, pragmatically. Point A is that married people have an automatic leg up on singles in the corporate world. Point B is that under the presumption that married couples share labor, which is not always true, single people have to work longer and more, if not harder, to manage their lives and households. To keep their proverbial shit together.
However, I love your reaction, and when you factor in kids, you are 100 billion percent right ...
Wow, I inspired you here, and that is good. However, I hate that I am unable to express myself clearly in writing. As an aspiring writer, it is clearly a HUGE FLAW. I did not mean to write this as a diatribe. I was laughing the whole time that I typed it. When I went back and read it "cold" I can definitely see where someone could read my words as bitter or angry, but I DIDN'T mean it that way at all! It was just funny to me, because I remember the blatant disrespect of being asked to work overtime while all the Mommies went home at 5:00. And the note about the jobs is because I see all of the great articles that you publish about computer tech as well as all of the hard work that you put in as a journalist at your 8-5 job (which can be around the clock, rather than 8-5 at times, right?). That is why the suggestion of domestic help was sincere, not sarcastic.
The discrimination that you write so eloquently about is real and unfair. However, when I worked full time with two children in daycare, there were many times when overtime was demanded, yet I had to tell my boss that I had to go pick up my two kids from daycare. I had no choice. If I didn't do it, I didn't have a mom or sister or even friend that could help out. Daycares close at 6:00pm and if you don't pick the kids up, they call DHS, or so they threaten, in writing. My husband travels with his job, and so was unable to help. So I got to leave and the singletons had to stay and work and they resented it VERY MUCH. That is the situation which I believed, perhaps mistakenly, that you were talking about. The housework thing is funny to me also, because ALL of my friends, male and female tell me that after the marriage, the female does all of the house work. It is just easier than fighting about it they say, shrugging, while their husband laughs smugly. THAT, I am a little bitter about!;-) Because I am not all that conservative. If a couple wants to have kids, I think it is best if one (male, female, whoever) of them only works part time outside of the home, unless they can hire domestic help. I used to be a nanny for several dual professional couples, so I know of which I speak. It is VERY hard to do it all without outside help. Having been a full time employee/mom wore me completely out. I could not do it very well and envy those that can. I also agree with you that America is too often obsessed with the idea that everyone should be married and have children. I would never push either of those commitments on anyone, nor think that anyone who didn't have them was less busy (in their whole life, not housework)or less fulfilled. Many times I have daydreamed what I could have accomplished if I was unencumbered by my commitments. But I love those commitments, so I am happy.
As a married person,I don't look down at single people at all, and the only disadvantage I have observed them to have (or have experienced myself before kids) is being forced to work overtime while the mommies go home (never the daddies, in my experience). And the reason that I centered my response around children is because all of the discrimination I have ever encountered against single people has revolved around the concept that they are not busy because they don't have kids, the spouse without children didn't play into it at all and was always treated the same as the single people.
Anyway, I should NEVER start a comment off with "insert name here, you don't even know what you are talking about here!!!" because when said in person, laughingly,to a friend, you would hopefully not have been offended. But in writing, it was inexcusably rude. I hope that you still refer to me as friend. (see, THIS is why I was afraid of the blogosphere,it is yet another arena in which I annoy people and lose friends!)
-Tamra
No worries at all. I was kind of surprised by the original post because I didn't really say too much about singledom at all other than that others were having a conversation about some issues that had never really affected me ... Alas, I definitely agree with your assessment if the discussion included children. That's a whole other world ...
I used to know this dude who tried to advance his career in Dallas specifically by getting married. He did advance his career, but he's now on his third marriage! ;-) ...