Productive Women

In a previous post, I mentioned wanting to pick up some hobbies. One: because I have the time. Two: because I don’t want to become a boring person that just complains all day because they got nothing else going on in their lives (I may or may not be referring to a coworker that I cannot stand).

So in an effort to become a more interesting person, I signed up for Guitar lessons, then Latin dance lessons, bought some pickleball gear, and I’m also considering taking a 3-month-long Community Theatre class. It’s as if I’m making up for lost time, signing all the extracurriculars my parents couldn’t afford when we moved to Canada. 

And maybe because I am an immigrant, but I can’t help but hear a little nagging voice at the back of my head that says I shouldn’t be wasting time with hobbies. That these hobbies are essentially just cost centers with no revenue-generating abilities, though that may be the ex-accountant in me talking. And the woman in me feels guilty indulging in hobbies when I could be doing something more productive, like advancing my career, picking up a side hustle, or even… cleaning.

Not that I keep a tidy house or anything, I just have a lot of guilt about it. I have the Catholic guilt without being Catholic.

Do other women feel this way? That you are never doing enough? That you could always be a little more productive? (I define “productive” as things that contribute to the entire household either financially or physically.) Maybe everyone has this issue, I just never heard of a man complain of feeling guilty about playing video games, or golfing or whatever else men do that’s purely recreational.

Even with sex, I’ve learned that I enjoy sex the most when we are trying for a baby. It’s like “YES! Might have just made a human being. Now that’s productivity!” *High-five!*

Is it really a coincidence that the word “Reproductive” has “Productive” in it? Or did a woman invent this word?

Anyway, I don’t know where this need to be constantly productive comes from, but if I had to blame someone it’d probably be my mother. She used to yell at me to “look alive!” if I even so much as yawned. Her catchphrase was “干点正事儿!” which roughly translates to “Do something productive!”, which I later learned was something my grandmother often said to her. And it made sense back then, my grandma definitely could not have afforded to take a self-care day while raising 5 children during the Great Chinese Famine. Oh, and did I mention that she was also a single mother? 

So yeah, she didn’t have hobbies. Her day was one hundred percent productive.

As for me? Well, let’s see… a week has 168 hours? I probably spend about 50 of those sleeping, another 50 hours at work, and at most 30 hours on household chores including walking the dog, so that means roughly 38 hours are used recreationally on things like hobbies, watching Netflix, and going out, ie. all “non-productive” things. So that works out to be about 20% of recreation time. Hmm…Not sure if that’s a lot or just about right…

So help me out here, what % of your time do you spend on “productive” activities and what % is spent on recreational activities? Let me know so I can compare myself to other people and decide whether to feel more or less guilty.

Until next time.

Xoxo,

Princess Kathleen