Category: Fulfillment

Motherhood shouldn’t just be a drudgery. Find fulfillment in your most important calling–mother.

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Fulfillment

The sometimes impossible balancing act of motherhood

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I’d finally begun to find a balance between trying to act as if motherhood hasn’t changed my life and my schedule at all, and totally accommodating my son.

Of course, this balancing act of motherhood changes nearly every day. One day, you can hardly pick up a gallon of milk; the next, your children sit through an hour and a half of grocery shopping without complaint.

But as your children grow and change, and sometimes our family expands, we are constantly having to adjust. Finding balance is a balancing act in an of itself.

And even if you do find balance, it doesn’t mean that your point of balance is necessarily an easy or leisurely one. Because being a mom just isn’t easy all the time. And it seems that sometimes “balance” is less a give-and-take between mom and baby and more of a “how much are you willing to give” for mom.

Wesley Jeanne at Mountain Mama wrote about this over the weekend.

I remember at my cousin Stacy’s baby shower (before kids for me), her older sister Karyn gave us both the advice that we should fit kids into our lifestyles rather than fit our lifestyles to our kids. I nodded sagely, sure of the wisdom of her advice. After all, at the time I thought it ridiculous if my friends with children wouldn’t do something because it interfered with nap time or was too inconvenient for the kids. I swore I wouldn’t be like that. When I had kids, I would be flexible, relaxed, I would have them adjust to my life.

You’re smiling. I know. I was delusional, wasn’t I?

Two kids later I do try to be flexible. I won’t bar the door and turn off the telephone and block all outside light during nap time, for example. My kids have learned to nap in a house that is impossible to keep dark and silent (I have a dog, I have neighbors, I don’t even have curtains on many of my windows).

But as a mother I also have to be aware at all times of the needs of my children. I am painfully aware of what happens when they don’t get enough sleep, when they get overstimulated, when their routine gets thrown for more than a day. Children need for parents to be flexible, but they also need structure. It just works better that way for all of us.

Although Wesley Jeanne goes on to acknowledge that it’s very hard to accommodate your schedule to your children, and being a prepared-mom-on-the-go is actually a lot more work than it looks like, I think the above statements show that she gets the underlying idea: a mom tries to be flexible and have fun with her kids, but at the same time, she has to put her kids’ needs first.

Of course, it’s easy to say that and know that, and another thing to do that. So head on over to Mountain Mama and show your support. Because sometimes, that’s what a mom really needs to feel better about this balancing act.

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Contests Fulfillment

Motherhood isn’t . . .

Motherhood is not, at its heart, about getting things done. To be sure, there are a lot of things that mother needs—or thinks she needs—to get done. Meal preparation, homework assistance, chauffeur service, vacuuming, and dishes—not to mention employment, a necessity for many mothers—absorb so much of a mother’s time that it’s very easy to let getting stuff done preoccupy our thoughts, our plans and our lives.

Preoccupy is the perfect word here. Our thoughts and our schedules are pre-occupied—they’re already filled And what are they filled with? So often, it’s just so much minutiae.

It’s minutiae that I often let get in the way of true motherhood. Cleaning is important, but not more important than enjoying my son. Cooking is important—we all gotta eat!—but not more important than being patient with my son. Even if he does have to be constantly underfoot while I’m in the kitchen.

It’s my attitude of “just let me finish what I need to do, and then I’ll be right with you (if I don’t have something else more pressing to do)” that gets in the way of all my positive mother attributes. (And I’m almost positive that I have some.)

Motherhood isn’t about getting it all done. There are no gold stars for keeping your floors spotless and your sink dish-free. A pristine home; a socially-, athletically-, and musically-active child; a four-course gourmet meal,—even a productive career—are all good things. But they shouldn’t be the sum total of motherhood, or even, ideally, the bulk of it.

Motherhood is not, at its heart, about doing. Motherhood is about being. Because motherhood isn’t just something you do; it’s who you are.

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Fulfillment

I do want a badge

There are many reasons, I’m sure, that people are generally very kind to visibly pregnant women. People without children, I think, make concessions for someone who appears to be in obvious physical discomfort. People with children, on the other hand, accommodate pregnant women out of pity or compassion—they know what’s coming.

When I was pregnant with Hayden, I never felt too bad for making Ryan stand in lines for me or taking an offered seat. I never really got that big with Hayden, but it did seem like people—even strangers—went out of their way to make sure that I was comfortable and they’d done everything they could for me.

Less than two weeks after Hayden was born, my mom gave Ryan and me our first night out. It was Valentine’s Day. I was still very much recovering from childbirth and the sleepless nights that followed. I was still wearing maternity clothes, though if I could pass for pregnant it would have probably been in the “is she or isn’t she?” phase. And of course, I was lactating.

We went to a self-service restaurant. I told Ryan what I wanted and went to claim a table. I looked around at the people in the restaurant. No one looked back. No one cast a compassionate, knowing smile in my direction.

I suppose I’d become spoiled, even though now, I’m sure that most of the nice things that people did for me weren’t out of the ordinary. But as I sat there, worried about leaking milk, the bags under my eyes and having the energy to make it through the evening, I wanted to stand on the table and scream, “Look at me! Be nice to me!! I JUST HAD A BABY!!!”

When you’re pregnant, everyone knows it. You’re in hormonal overload and everyone seems to care about you, your baby, your welfare. You lose the belly, though, and you’re just another face in the crowd.

I decided that night that I do want a badge. It doesn’t necessarily have to say, “DANGER: HORMONAL LACTATING MOTHER” (though that might be most useful for people around me!). I’d be okay with something more understated like “New mother; please handle with care.”

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Fulfillment

What does it take to be a mom?

Saturday I got all reminiscent about how I felt about mothering before I had my son—which got me thinking. What skills or talents do you wish you had before you became a mother?

For me, that’s a pretty easy question. My first answer is always PATIENCE. I can be patient with some things, but other things, I expect to go exactly as planned or I basically freak out. This is not only bad when I lose my patience and get upset with my son, but also a bad example of how to deal with stress (and, frankly, every day life, since that’s about how often it happens!).

I also wish I’d gotten a bit more consistent with my housekeeping before he was born. It’s still a constant struggle to keep the floors clean and the dishes done around here (with much credit for the latter due to my husband).

Finally, I think I’d like to have learned more contentment. I don’t know if it’s my age or just my nature, but I frequently suffer from psychological wanderlust—I’m ready to move on to the next thing every so often. (Or perhaps four-month-long courses in college ruined me!) As fast as children grow up, it’s not ever on your time table—and when they do reach that next milestone, how often do we mothers find ourselves thinking “Man, why can’t he grow back down? It was so much easier before he could crawl/walk/drive!”

I wish that I were more naturally adept at surveying my life where it is at a given point and being able to give a satisfied smile without thinking “Okay, good so far—but now what? What should I be working on next? Let’s go, go, go!”

So what skills do you wish you’d developed before your children came along? Or what would you advise a prospective mom to learn before she had children?

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Fulfillment

Living our life

It’s been three months since Hayden “customized” my glasses, and I’ve been making do ever since with shoddily-taped-together glasses.

While I was visiting my parents, my mom asked me several times why I haven’t replaced them yet. I didn’t really have a reason, but sometimes I tried to tell myself that my glasses were just one outward manifestation of what it meant to be a mother—sacrificing yourself for your child’s well-being.

And in a way, it was, but the reason is much larger than the martyrdom of motherhood. It’s not that I can’t take time for myself and spend an hour picking out frames and return a week later to have them fitted. It’s the fact that Hayden wouldn’t like it. He probably wouldn’t stand for it.

A lot of the time, I do dwell on the things that I can’t do now that I’m a mother. But last week, I realized that I really could do things like that for myself. It’s that I choose not to. Some of it is because I’m a mom and I feel like I can’t take time for myself, but a lot of it is that I’m not just living for me anymore. I’ve become so accustomed to being Hayden’s mother that I know what he likes to do and what he wants to do—and what will probably make him throw a fit.

Happy Meal HaydenBut just when I think I know him, he goes and grows up some more. Today we went grocery shopping and throughout the 90-minute trip, he fussed just once (and threw his snacks on the ground just once).

For a few hours, I got to feel like a great mom—he was the happy, zany boy that he is growing up to be. He found his bath hilarious, he thought drumming on his belly hysterical and I was sad to see him go to bed, even though he didn’t make a sound once I laid him in his crib. I was living my life for him for those few hours, and it felt amazing—good enough to forget the many hours I’d tried to work earlier today with Hayden almost constantly clamoring for my attention.

For someone whose only real words are “hai” and “Mommy?Mommy?Mommy?Mommy?Mommy?Mommy?Mommy?” it’s amazing how much he’s changed my life—my priorities, my patience, my expectations—but most of all, today I can really appreciate how my little guy has changed my happiness—even if I can’t wear my glasses out of the house.

This post is part of Summer’s Group Writing Project—hurry to participate this weekend to make it in by the deadline!

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Fulfillment

Vacation from guilt?

One thing that I look forward to every time I know I’ll be visiting with family is the opportunity to get a break. Not from work, usually, because I still usually end up working. I look forward to having more help with Hayden. A lot of the time, I think I would feel better about being a mother if I had more support around me—more people I could turn to during the day for help, more people that I could ask to watch Hayden so I could go to the dentist, get a project done or just take a shower.

So when I’m visiting with my family, I’m very excited to have that support (even if I won’t be going to the dentist or the doctor while I’m on vacation). But at the same time, I feel bad for “dumping” Hayden on my family all the time—and then I feel like they think I’m a bad mother who always wants to foist my child off on the first available person. Plus, I don’t want to ditch my family, either.

For those of you far from your families, what do you do to balance your time with your kids and your opportunity for a virtually endless supply of trusted babysitters?