In defense of the Mommy Headphones.

In recent years, I've taken quite a lot of criticism from my family for always having my ear buds in my ears.  And it's pretty much true.  They are in quite a lot of the time.  It's not that I disagree with the concept of "don't always be plugged in."  On the contrary, I set all kinds of time/usage rules regarding media of all sorts with my kids.  Over the last decade or so, our culture and society has been adjusting to a new factor of human life -- the electronic factor.  We can, if so inclined and allowed, live a completely virtual life.  Conversations, relationships, activities, can ALL be lived and accomplished without the benefit of actual human interaction.  This is not a good thing.  This is not to say our technological age is inherently evil, we all enjoy too many huge benefits from our iWorld to say that.  But there are some very real dangers, which have been and are continuing to be examined and discovered.  It comes down to this: humans need real interaction and society needs humans who are capable of human interaction.  The virtual world can destroy this in so many ways the original internet and computer programmers and engineers never realized.  Fortunately, we are recognizing this and society is working to fix this, ironically often using the very medium that creates the problem -- social networking and internet information.  More conversation creates more action.  We can use our electronic technologies to our benefit if we conscientiously avoid the dangers.  However.

This is NOT what Mommy headphones are about.  Let's get that straight right now.

Mommy headphones are not about an inability to understand and function in the real world.  They are a tool needed by mommies because of an OVERABUNDANCE of the real world.  A very, very real, graphic, smelly, loud, repetitive, whiny world.  Thus I present to you, my three arguments why the Mommy headphones ain't leaving my ears anytime soon.

1.  I don't want to listen to you.  

As in:

He's hogging the tv/computer/xbox!
Why can't we get a dog?!
I've just eaten three pizzas and I'm still hungry!
I forgot to wash my uniform after the last meet and it's been sitting wet in my duffle bag for 4 days!
He's sitting in my spot!
I need to take a dump!
Wow I just took the mother of all dumps!
Nobody told me I had to actually turn my homework in!
You just make us do chores to torture us!
I'm not taking out the trash, it's gross!
He made me mad so I HAD to hit him!
Why can't I watch (TV-MA show), it's hilarious?!
He's gross!
EVERYBODY else gets to _______, why can't I?!
It's his fault!
I'm too tired to load the dishwasher! (But not too tired to eat . . .)
He's an idiot for thinking _____ Xman is a more powerful mutant than ____ Xman so I punched him!
Showers are for chumps!
I'm working on my Man Smell!
Hey, I just farted again!! And again!!
Why can't I wear the same underwear all week?!

Really.  I don't want to listen to you or any of it.  Hence the earbuds.  However, if you'd like to converse like a normal human instead of a rabid monkey, I'm ready and willing to listen at any moment, day or night.  Lots of real teen conversation (the ones you really need to have) happen in the wee hours and I will always wake up for those.  But when the conversation starts to go rancid, the headphones are coming out.

2.  I will not stick to this chore without distraction.

Every non-mom out there needs to own this right now:  Moms do all the chores no one else wants to do.  For free.  It's a statistical fact, even full-time working moms end up doing the vast majority of chores at home that no one else wants to do -- dishes, laundry, general clean up.  We ARE doing all the stuff nobody else will do without pay.  Having said that,  I will absolutely own that I chose this job and responsibility.  I chose to be a mom, I chose to stay home (and have been blessed to be able to do so), and I chose to be a homemaker.

That DOES NOT mean I love laundry.  Or dishes.  Or dealing with pets.  Or finding lost left shoes while the bus is pulling up in front of the house.  Or fishing various items out of various toddler facial orifices.  Or cleaning up 2 am vomit from a bed and/or pile of toys on the floor.  Factor in to this the fact I am mildly ADD and have to put serious effort into sticking with anything until it's finished.  No lie, I leave faucets running and fridge doors open and laundry half washed and food half prepped and car doors standing open on a regular basis.

If I download a book on tape and pop the ol' mommy headphones in, however, I will be distracted enough to get the whole job done. Somehow, and it doesn't really make sense to me either, if I'm listening to a story (sometimes music, but usually a favorite book) I will stick with the job until it's done.  So leave the headphones alone if you want your dinner actually cooked and your shirts both washed AND dried. (AND actually folded and put away!  Oh ya!)

3.  I don't have 6 hours to sit and read a book and by All That Is Holy I need to do SOMETHING fun!

Taking note of #2, I don't have a lot of sit-down time in my day.  Unless, of course, I just ignore the house and take a day off.  This happens occasionally, but then it takes me three days to catch up.  So, if I want to do something during the day I actually enjoy, it has to be something I can do in tandem with what I need to do but may not like.  There are many things I enjoy doing, but most of them can't be multi-tasked into the needs of the day.  You really can't make cherry chocolate cheesecake and fold laundry at the same time.  I have tried.  It just results in more laundry.  (But you do get a cheesecake out of it.  Just scoop out the sock baked into the side there . . . )

I am, however, a bookophile.  I love reading, I love real books, I love stories and getting lost in the narrative.  But I don't have time to sit and read until bedtime and frankly, by then I am mostly brain-dead.  Again, the headphones and an audio book come to the rescue.  A classic Terry Pratchett or radio broadcast recording of some Douglass Adams and I will take on the day!  The laundry is folded before I  know it and the competitive farting from the Flying Monkey Circus (my boys) goes unregarded.

So, step back from the mommy headphones.  I'm not losing touch with humanity in a virtual fog, I'm not losing my social politeness and basic manners in a spastic need to be in constant electronic communication, I'm dealing with reality in its most full-blown tactile grittiness as I'm doing the world's toughest job.

And Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is hilarious.

And no one wants a sock in the cheesecake.