Today I did it, I finally was a great mother. Usually, I push us through the day connecting activity and errand until nap time and then punting the last hour or so before my husband comes home. My sons are drug around and impatient, causing me to be irritable with them, causing them to be crabby, causing me to…you know how it goes. But today, oh today, I just hunkered down and we lived the stay at home dream. We ate a wholesome breakfast. Finger-painting was next, followed immediately and smoothly with a bath in the sink. Baking, blocks, and horse-rides, I was a present mom rather than my usual distracted self. And the biggest surprise was that I loved it.
My generation of women were raised to believe we could do it all; education, career, motherhood, marriage, independence. As little girls we were told that we could be anything we wanted. Our parents, teachers, and coaches were right, they just forgot to mention that we couldn’t be it all at the same time. Or at least not do it all very well at the same time. I spend a great portion of each day thinking of everything I am not doing. If I am home I am thinking about what I need to be doing at work, if I am not home, I ache for my children. I have done countless combinations of work and home, part-time, full-time, job share, self employed, at home. None of the combinations have achieved a balance that lasted as our needs and children grew and changed.
My sons are relentless bundles of potential. They want to stick their hands on everything they see, to try it all, to master their goals. Their drive is an incredible thing to witness every day. The problem is that they get it from me. I want to be a mom, but I also yearn to be a student, a career woman, a writer, and truth-be-told, famous for something. Oh, yeah, I also want to get into shape. There is not enough room in the house some days for all of our potential, and definitely not enough time.
I am so thankful for all the opportunities available to me as I grew up, but in my secret heart of hearts, the grass sometimes looks greener back in the day when their weren’t so many options. If I were a mom back then I would be more focused on what needed to get done everyday, rather than whirling around trying to do everything I could think of. The grass may just look greener however, because my 1950’s husband would spend all weekend working on it and fertilizing the heck out of it.
Today though, I didn’t have to achieve Donna Reed or Martha Stewart status. I didn’t even need to be all of the things I want to be. Life was simple and clear for the first time in three and a half years. I was just mommy, and I was good at it. The boys both finally fell asleep and I realized it was only noon. The perfect day probably wouldn’t last all day, especially not into the witching hour right before daddy comes home, but shoot, I will take what I can get, or I guess more to the point, I will take what I can give today I will give myself a break and say job well done, Mama.
– Elke Govertsen, mamalode publisher
Love what you read? Share it!
Email This Post
Connect with us!
Awesome Elke. Fantastic writing and what a refreshing reminder that we can’t do it all. Thank you!
Yes, job well done, Mama. I can so so relate to the blessed/cursed nature of how many effing options we have as mamas today. It’s hard to know you are doing what you are meant to do or what is the best thing to do. I keep learning (over and over…when will the lesson end?) that there is beauty, intention, perfection and importance in nearly everything we do. As moms and otherwise. Elke, I think you are famous. At least, you are famously inspiring!
Well said and so true! I remember a handful of those “perfect” days when my kids were little. Now I search for perfect snapshots….I figure getting in at least a few hours at a time of those moments will hopefully be what my children remember when they are grown and gone:)
Thanks for the wonderful post!
This is a wonderful piece, Elke! Thank you!
Bravo, as if right out of my own head at this wee hour of the morning… thank you for writing it down Ms. Elke. I missed this back in October and just found it by chance now. Choice… as I age and am a mama I seem to become a fan of choice architecture… it seems to be a way to make sense of all the options. Somedays I say, “Enough with the options already.”