Dispatches from the Road
A Mother Leaves Her Family...for Work (GASP!)
Hello, Readers and Listeners!
I am writing from the road! I’m currently in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada - famous for Diana Krall and a dark chocolate and custard confection known as a Nanaimo Bar.
Also, it is firmly autumn - every coffee place I pass by is advertising pumpkin lattes and hot apple cider. Can we all agree that hot apple cider is just lukewarm apple juice that thinks it's better than you?
Our second episode of Parenting is a Joke is out with the hosts of the hit podcast What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood, Amy Wilson and Margaret Ables. They helped me figure out how hard I should push my kid into extracurriculars. Turns out - not that hard! They are hilarious and offer really good advice (a rarity), so check it out!
Right now, I'm doing something I haven’t done since I became a mom: an 18-city month-long standup tour in Canada. I agreed to this tour almost a year ago, and I have to tell you that ever since March 2020 (or the beginning of the pandemic), when I say yes to big things/shows/ travel, my first thought is: this has a 50/50 chance of actually happening, right?
And then the summer ended, COVID came back, school actually started, time simply marched on, and I guess I'm on tour. Honestly, I did not see this coming.
I feel guilty about leaving my family for a whole month to do this. Doesn't every generic ABC movie end with the career-driven parent realizing that being a CEO wasn't worth it??? They have an epiphany that they can’t miss one more precious moment of their kids growing up and that family is the most important thing in the world?!
I’m no CEO but I am bathed in guilt. I mentioned to numerous people that I was guilty about taking this tour, and what I got back was one of the following 3 responses:
Enjoy yourself! Work-out every day and enjoy being alone!
Wait! You're getting paid for these shows, right?
Wow. You're so lucky your husband lets you do this.
Okay, I'd just like to break this down for a moment.
Number 1 is a little bit of a fantasy because if you've ever been on a business trip as a parent, you fantasize about what you are going to do with all of your downtime: work-out for hours, meditate, journal, walk, achieve inbox zero, finish a novel, write a novel… and then you spend most of the day wandering around a strange town trying to find a decent cup of coffee, and asking the front desk of the hotel to re-magnetize my key.
As far as Number 2: making money - yes! I love making money at what I do, and in my household we need two people bringing it in if our kid wants to continue in those extracurricular activities that he doesn't seem to love or care about. So yes, I would only take a tour like this at this point in my life for the cold, hard cash, baby!
And finally, 3: You're so lucky your husband lets you do this.
Let's all take a deep breath. Actually, I just need to take a deep breath on that one because… WTF?! WHAT YEAR IS IT?
I don't devalue my husband's participation in making our family work – he does a lot, and of course, just like any partnership, we discussed how this would all go. But I did not ask his permission. He was actually more excited about the opportunity than I was (which also made me think, oh, is he looking forward to not seeing me for a month? Which, by the way, is also… fair). BUT can you imagine saying to a man, "You're so lucky your wife, the mother of your kids, is letting you take that business trip? What a rare and special woman."
Just because my job is non-traditional and I'm a woman, the assumption is that I had to ask consent from my husband, my keeper, to let me out of the house so I could play around on stages at night, trying my little jokes for free, while doing hours-long yoga classes during the day for a solid month.
That life actually sounds AMAZING.
So that's it, now I'm abandoning my family for a month to prove a point.
Am I a bad mom for leaving to go out on the road and tour as a professional standup comic and make some money at the job that I've worked at for 20 years? No. That does not make me a bad mom. It makes me an average dad.
And if I pick up some overpriced gifts on my way home at the airport shop next to my gate, that makes me a great dad.
And here I am on Day 3.
Before I left, I got this great idea: I would buy tiny envelopes and tiny notecards (like the size you see at a florist) and write a message to my son so that every day, he would get a little envelope from me while I was away. And then I was so overwhelmed before I left that I did it quickly - my notes are probably riddled with spelling mistakes, but let's all pat me on the back for doing it.
I haven't heard what he thinks of them. The only thing I have received back are photos of me that my son has taken with his iPad and then drew on. (Who taught him how to do this? Seriously.)
Typically, the first couple of days on tour are fun, just to be out of the busy routine, with a mind full of thoughts of only my needs. But so far, it's been raining every day; one of the staff tested positive for COVID, and the other two comics are hilarious, but high most of the time. So it's a bit lonely being alone. 15 more shows to go! Let's hope I can find some good coffee.
Enjoy this week's episode of Parenting is a Joke with Amy and Margaret from What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood, and coming up with comedians Michelle Buteau, Alyce Chan, and Mike Lawerence.
