Leave It To Beaver

My biggest takeaway from the week of having boy t as live-in houseboy was completely unexpected. It turns out that deep down, I am Ward Cleaver.  

It's been almost 20 years since the first time I joked that "I need a wife". As a heterosexual professional woman, that makes people chuckle, but I was never entirely kidding. I work hard in an environment that is more stressful than I enjoy. And My personal history is one characterized by feeling I have to go it alone. I've made a professional virtue out of My ability to step into chaos and Fix It, to bring various forms of chaos into a state of linearity and clarity and order. But the reality is, I don't actually *enjoy* chaotic environments. I like solving a puzzle, but it's an intellectual exercise. I enjoy serenity. I grew up in a deeply rural place, I spent a summer in the Alaska bush and never got bored or cabin fever, I love serenity.

So this week of having a houseboy is enlightening a big edge I hadn't fully mapped before. I have lived with a partner in the past, for several years, but this is the first time the co-habitant is serving Me exactly as I say I want to be served. Without any below-the-surface power struggle. And it's not just that "he is like this"...  in point of fact, he is not by disposition a neatnik. That makes his effort to create neatness for Me all the more of a service. 

I told boy t to plan out our meals for the week before he arrived, and I left that pretty open ended because he needs a rather specialized diet for medical reasons. I know he can cook and I know that the way he Must eat is the way I Should eat. So this is a win-win. I told him to plan our dinners around his needs and pre-prep them as appropriate. He arrived with two coolers and fed us very nicely all week. One night was pork belly that he marinaded in spices for ten days; the boy was not phoning it in. And from these dinners, he packs Me a lunch. No one has ever actually packed a lunch for Me before. I even have him texting Me a reminder to take it out of the fridge (since I'm so unaccustomed to this treatment) and a reminder to eat it, since I often get so busy at work that I forget to eat until mid afternoon when I start to feel grumpy.

Several days into our 24/7 experiment, I walked in to the house, having pre-ordered a cocktail to be ready for Me.  boy t was cooking, the table was set, the cocktail was immediately handed over. The house smelled great. The sofas were sittable and the throw pillows fluffed, the floor had been vacuumed, and I just knew the beds had been made. Laundry was humming. I walked in and felt inspired to announce, "Hi, honey, I'm home!" The boy has heard Me commenting about this Leave It To Beaver feeling this week, so he replied, "Welcome home, Ward" and I followed with, "Where's the Beaver?". I really felt in that moment that My house is My castle, My refuge, in a way I never have before.

I swear, if it were colder, I would have him fetch My fucking slippers too.

I *like* this. 

And I'm slightly appalled to find that deep down I'm such a fucking *patriarch* given half a chance. White male privilege of the 1950s flavour? Sure, I'll take some it. Give it up? Now, why the heck would I do that?   It’s… disconcerting… to feel I can so easily become exactly what I reacted against My entire life.  Heck, what My *mother* has reacted against.  Basically, I’m My white collar, Jr.VP Grandpa.

Growing up, about the worst thing you could say about a child in My world was that they were spoiled. My dad said it once about My cousin, and although he was much given to volume when upset, this was so awful, so unspeakable, that he dropped his voice, and whispered with deep regret… that she was… *spoiled*. I only faintly knew what that meant but I knew what happened to fruits and vegetables when they spoiled, and it was fucking fatal. No way, not in My family, was I ever going to be... *spoiled*.

And I fer damned sure wasn't. Nope, it was all rugged independence in My family. You got a problem, ya better figure it the fuck out by yourself cuz there's nobody gonna help ya. Being picked on and bullied? The Bible says turn the other cheek. The end. Even the Bible wasn't much interested in your problems where I grew up.  Good Calvinists are the original masochists.

So here I am, and I have finally made My way to a dynamic in which I have some very  nice help once in a while. In which some things upon My request magically Get Done, with no further effort in My part. And what do I feel?

Spoiled.

I mentioned the spoiled/entitlement cognitive dissonance thing to a very nice male Master at last week's MAST potluck while we were eating our hot dogs and watermelon and banana pudding.  He had no idea what I was talking about.  Then some other Female Masters chimed in that they could absolutely relate to My feelings. And he was like, "what could possibly be the problem allowing yourself to be served? I don't get it."  We all just sat there looking at each other for a moment, thinking Deep Thoughts.  Because of course, it's really very easy, unless you've been taught it's impossible.

So My emotional work lately has been figuring out how to turn spoiled into something constructive. We all have an idea of what we are entitled to and I've grown to the edge of Mine, gotta find a way to expand the horizon. So I have cognitively reframed "spoiled" into "supported". And it's sad to realize, frankly, that I felt so pervasively un-supported as a kid. My physical needs were met and My parents loved Me, but My subjective experience of childhood was a lot about feeling unsupported. That fact has been a tremendous driver behind My professional success, but it also has been a factor in the depression I had to grow through at one point, and it's certainly a factor in My dominance. The Jungian drive toward wholeness requires that I find and integrate such things, heal them, and it's being an eye opening, healing kind of week.

Hi, My name is Ward Cleaver and this is My lovely wife… his name is boy t.