I decided that I was overpraising Maria for the work she does on the farm.
It isn’t that she doesn’t do a ton of work; it’s that it began to feel patronizing to me to be showering her with almost surprised praise for doing what she wants to do and loves to do – contribute to the farm and help protect and preserve it and care for the animals.
She doesn’t need praise for that and doesn’t want it. She does what she wants to do; nobody made her do it; she is not a Superwoman. Sometimes, you can love and respect someone too much. I’m not much for praise, either.
I sometimes seem amazed that my wife can take on so many complex and laborious tasks – the patronizing part – when she is doing what she sees as her job and pride. Would I say this stuff about a man? I doubt it.
She never objected, but it began sounding fawning and excessive. She never pad much attention to it either.
We don’t shower much praise on one another; we just do what we need to do. Sometimes, we go beyond that. It doesn’t need a parade. Our love does not require that.
Maria and I respect each other most; we just do what we can and want to do. She doesn’t need to be a Willa Cather Woman; she must only be Maria. Today, she began the final wood stacking. She started moving the last cord of wood onto the wood pile.
We have plenty of wood for the winter, which is beautifully stacked.
So, I’ll describe what happens here and lay off the wonder and praise. It feels good. We don’t need to bring Tarzana or Willa Cather into it.
She should be done in a couple of days, if not tonight. She’s been out there for an hour and a half.
I don’t think you were over-praising Maria, I think you were verbally expressing your appreciation for what she can undertake and accomplish, some of which maybe you no longer can, or wouldn’t, for various reasons, attempt. And yes, while there are occasions to call someone for help, there is also a joy in visualizing a solution to a task, seeing the eventual outcome to fruition, if having the wherewithal, tools and time to perform its completion. Other manual (and some might say menial) tasks can, yes, be varying degrees of laborious or repetitive, and after a while may not “take much thought”, but that in itself can be relaxing, meditative or even a study in being present and focused, engage an alternate area of the brain and sometimes result in the eureka solution to a different problem for having temporarily taken one’s mind off it, or just provide a momentary sense of successful completion in an otherwise mundane or hectic day. I find few things better than saying, “Well, THAT’S done.” To myself — because there’s no one like you around to blog about it in appreciation.
My Hubs doesn’t like excessive praise, he says it makes him uncomfortable. He feels, as Maria does, that he’s just doing his job, or what he wants to do, and how he wants it done. I’ve learned to acknowledge his efforts, validate his feelings about what he did, and thank him for his work. He says it feels more sincere that way. I get it.
I liked the sentence, “She doesn’t need to be a Willa Cather Woman; she must only be Maria.” That is the truth.