Noël Ash

Noël Ash

Noël Ash

For two months my daughter refused to bathe. What was once a non-issue now haunted us both, and we each had our coping mechanisms: she begging and wailing and writhing, I waiting her out, struggling to keep her little skull from dashing on the porcelain. My sanity always felt in peril, and I stared deep into the foggy glow of the tiled walls. I could never predict the transition from weeping into giggling, the point when her little person couldn’t pour all her focus onto fighting me. Distracted by the pleasure of warm water, she somehow forgot to keep crying, and I’d breathe to help my brain cool down.

These episodes became, for me, an example of the sheer pointless misery of many of the tasks of housewifing. Contrary to our culture’s deeply held belief that women’s biological need to nurture makes tending to her home a satisfaction, I find housework to be what it is: a chore. This includes many of the tasks involving my ofttimes delightful children. For me, last spring, the worst was the bath.