Do Moms Do Too Much?
I am scrambling to go away for a few days with my mother and sister and I get an email from the Pizza Day coordinator at school: "Can you come for pizza lunch? We lost a volunteer."
So I did. One of the many parents at school giving up our lunch hour to dish out soggy pizza to the kids. I didn't have the time and not really the inclination, but I showed up. But I don't do much when it comes to school activities. After three kids, I'm burnt out.
Mom burn-out is so common it is a cliche. The administration of having kids is weighty and I wonder why we take it all on. The paperwork, the volunteer hours, the ridiculous errand for the correct choir top. Registering my kids for camp is a four-day full-time activity (and no I haven't done it yet). Shlepping them to extracurriculars, making their snacks, booking their haircuts. Remembering the raffle tickets and buying them all. The little things add up and stress us out.
But instead of giving ourselves a pat on the back, we feel guilty. Guilty that we didn't read two French books a day, guilty that we weren't there for Batik day, or the time when our child sang a song for his teacher. We feel guilty that we don't do 3-D crafts or find the time to teach our kids to do Sudoku so they can be smarter than everyone else.
The beginning of summer becomes stressful because no three kids in any one family want to go to the same camp or do the same extracurricular, so instead of a break summer becomes more work than the school year.
So before the final school bell rings, let's take a moment and appreciate the choices that we have made. And why that makes us a good mom.
Cut yourself some slack, remember that our goal is to be a "Good Enough Mother" because perfect doesn't give us any opportunities for growth. Go read Kyran Pittman's Confessions of a Mom and if you are anything like me you will see yourself reflected in her words. (She has a new book out, which is on my reading list.)
Do you do too much? Do you ever take a moment to appreciate it all?
Want more chaos? Last year I wrote about something that comes up a lot, supporting breastfeeding with some hilarious commercials.
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