Confessions of Motherhood

Here lies the longest post I've ever written.  And there's no pictures.  I'm sorry, or you're welcome, whichever way you feel about it. :)

 

As I sit down to write this, I am not sure what exactly I am going to say, or why I finally feel the need to say it out loud, but I feel like there is a lot bottled up inside of me and the past few months it’s building.  I’m ready to purge, to put it all out there and say, I’m not perfect.  I’m so very, very far from being the person I want to be, and half the time I feel like I am crawling in the wrong direction.  I feel like often times “secrets” or things that we are insecure (or even ashamed) about get pushed down, sent away to a dark corner, hoping to be over-looked or forgotten about.  The problem is that this is the environment in which they thrive.  Hiding your hurt only intensifies it. Insecurities grow in the dark and only become bigger and bigger, but when exposed to the light of truth, they shrink. You are only as unhappy as your secrets let you be.

Now at this point, after a lead in like that, I am sure that you are all expecting me to say something devastating or dramatic like, “I’m a natural blonde”.  But there is no big revelation here. (Sorry, I know it would be really juicy to be hiding a secret family somewhere or to admit I was once a man)  But my secrets are mundane.  Common, typical, and too uninteresting to shed any light on.  Or at least that’s how I feel.  Part of me feels like there HAS to be lots of other moms out there who feel just like me, but for some reason it seems like those of us who are stay at home moms are either talking about how much they LOVE their life as a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom), or else they aren’t talking. 

I want to be completely honest here, a lot of the time I feel like a big part of me is not fulfilled.  “Now let me be clear” (said in my serious Obama voice), I choose to stay at home with my young children.  I would make that choice again and again.  That is a very personal choice for me.  My mom didn’t have that choice, as a single mom, and when I pause to think about the blessing it is to be so involved with my children I am overwhelmingly grateful for the opportunities I have.

I also understand that no matter how great your life is, there will always be times and seasons during which you feel unfulfilled on at least some level.  We don’t get all our blessings at once, and I don’t expect it to be any different.  I am often told (as I am sure all of you are) that to everything there is a season, and that life passes too quickly.  In fact I tell myself these things.  Often.  I tell myself to enjoy the season, and a lot of the time, I do.

But a lot of the time, it is hard. 

I know in my heart that the work I am doing with my children in my home will have lasting effects, possibly for generations.  I am building my kid’s foundation that they will draw on the rest of their lives.  I am helping shape their view of themselves, the world, manners, kindness, justice, spirituality, and doing my best to help them develop a good work ethic, sense of humor, and desire to be kind and charitable.  But when the floor you just spent 20 minutes mopping, while holding a crying baby in one arm and trying to manipulate the mop with the other gets peed all over, by your child who has been potty trained for a year and a half, it feels like everything you spend your time/energy on is only temporary.  Last weekend I did 9 loads of laundry, including washing everyone’s bedding (for no reason! Just to keep them clean…I will admit that more often than not, sheets in our house are washed because they are dirty, not because we are making sure they never get dirty), I put clean sheets, and blankets on all the beds, I worked hard to fold and put away laundry.  That night we had 2 of our 3 kids pee the bed.  It seems like so much of the time when I put a lot of effort into something, it must go bad.  Immediately.  Oh, you planned a fun day trip and told the kids about it the night before?  Someone will wake up puking.  You actually washed the baseboards and walls?  The 2 year old will throw her spaghetti.  You spent hours making a princess dress?  It will be ripped and thrown under the bed.  You made a nutritious meal from scratch? At least one child will cry that they want a hot dog or cereal instead. 

This is just life.  It’s normal, and I accept it.  But sometimes it gets me down.  When your weekly “to-do” lists stay the same and are filled with things like wash towels, vacuum & mop, grocery shop, and your days revolve around 3 meals + 2 snacks, dishes, never-ending-cycle of toy pickup, reminding kids to use the bathroom, brush their teeth, and say “thank you”, the monotony of life can become overwhelming.  I remember life before becoming a SAHM, waking up each day curious.  The day was filled with possibilities.  How would rehearsal or practice go?  What would your friends or coworkers talk about?  Would something new or exciting happen?

Now, I am in complete control.  Nothing happens that I don’t schedule.  And not much that I am in charge of could be labeled new or exciting.  I pay bills, schedule Dr. appointments and play dates, decide whether or not to go to the store or procrastinate.  Don’t get me wrong, I do get a sense of satisfaction when my house is clean, and functioning at its peak.  I do get a sense of accomplishment when a day is spent with no TV, but with a couch fort, cookies, and lots of giggles.  My heart warms when I see my children sleeping peacefully, and a lot of the time I love to read them books and singing them to sleep.

But, in keeping with honesty, a lot of the time when they bring me a book my first thought isn’t, “I’m so glad that my children want me to read to them”.  It’s a wave of impatience.  Of course much of the time it’s because a book is being shoved under my nose while I am sitting on the toilet, or on the phone with the gas company, or in the middle of typing this blog.  When my kids burst into my room at 6am I most often feel, in the place of what was once curiosity and anticipation for the day, a sense of exhaustion and a deep, deep desire to sleep a little longer. 

Some days are dreadful, and some days are picture perfect.  We do fun things, not because I feel pressured to do fun things, or because I am going through the motions of what a fun, involved mom should do, but because I am just having fun with my children.  I am enjoying being around them.  They make me laugh and surprise me and make me proud to be their mother.  Those days are wonderful, but most days are a mixture of good and bad, a mixture of beautiful moments and struggles of will.  Much of the time the fun project we are doing is not being done because I am so excited to do it, but because I know the kids have already watched too much TV today, and I should provide them with something creative and stimulating.

I am a selfish person.  I have always known that about myself, and since I was about 18 or so I have been earnestly trying to be less so.  It’s in my nature to be self-centered and to want to have fun.  That’s part of who I am and I think that most people who know me have accepted that and even, dare I say, enjoy it.  I have learned though, over the last decade, how to see the needs of others.  Being self-centered by nature doesn’t mean that you don’t care about other people, it just means that it is hard to see outside of yourself.  I feel like I have grown immeasurably in this regard since getting married 8 ½ years ago.  But I am still growing.  I am still struggling to find fulfillment and consistent joy in making my children happy. 

Maybe it’s hard for me because I grew up on the stage.  In the world of theatre your actions are noticed, your hard work and talents are praised and recognized.  I was spoiled enough to find something that I was deeply passionate about at a young age and I was able to spend almost 2 decades doing something I loved and something that I was “known” for.  It was challenging and exciting and immediately gratifying.  It was (and is) a huge part of who I am.  And as everyone knows motherhood is underappreciated, I have worked much, much harder as a SAHM than I ever did as an employee or student, and with much, much less encouragement, incentive, and recognition.

But maybe it’s not harder for me than anyone else.  Maybe it’s hard for everyone and I just don’t know it.

At times I have felt like maybe it’s just not in my nature to be a good mother.  Maybe I’m too selfish.  Maybe I’d be happier doing something that stimulated me creatively.  Maybe I am not cut out for this.  In the darkest moments I have questioned to what benefit I am doing all this work that seems to be futile.

But deep down, I don’t believe that.  Deep down I believe that all of us (male or female) have the ability to be good, selfless, mothers.  Parts of motherhood may be easier for some than others, but I believe that we all have a deep, deep reservoir of beautiful, charitable, kind, gentle, humble, genuine, motherly love inside us.  We just aren’t used to using it, and some of the time, we might not even be sure how to access it.  It’s like trying to just wiggle your ring finger, while all of your other fingers are balled into a fist.  It feels strange and difficult and it’s hard to do it for a length of time.  But as unnatural as it might feel, that finger is part of your body.  Those muscles belong to you.  They might not be used to being isolated and thrust into use, but if you decided to make them agile and strong, they would eventually become such.

The struggle for me is learning how to make my motherhood muscle strong and agile without exhausting it.  And even beyond that, sometimes it’s a struggle to even want to exercise it, to find the motivation to shed my pride and vanity and laziness and selfishness that hold me back. 

 I know it’s there, inside me, but I get in my own way. 

That’s my secret.

I am afraid to completely lose myself to motherhood.  I want to hold onto myself, my passions, my interests, my connection to other adults, things that I feel make me as an individual-outside of my family-who I am, and I also want to be a devoted, enthusiastic mother, but I don’t know how to find the perfect balance. 

I sometimes put so much enthusiasm into a burst of “motherhood energy”, that at the end of the day if the kids are grouchy and unappreciative it leaves me feeling even more depleted, finding less joy in the journey of motherhood instead of more.  I’m sure we’ve all been in that situation, where something is built up and expectations are unrealistic, if not for the over-expectation, the pressure to enjoy; the experience probably would have been more enjoyable.  I want my kids to have fond memories of their childhood, but often times the “memory makers” are so much stress/work.  Do all moms secretly harbor apathy toward big fun memories that kids enjoyed, because it was so much work to coordinate, or is it simply me not taking the time to stop and enjoy it?

This is why I am not on Pintrest.  I feel like I don’t need to see all the extra work on display, don’t need any extra pressure to make over-the-top memories.  I struggle to do all the wonderful, positive things I already know I should be doing, I don’t need a million other things I’ve never even thought of rolling around in my head!  I know for a lot of people it's a great way for them to explore their creativity, and if I gave it a try I am sure there would be lots of things to benefit.  But I also know people who have turned it into a competition of parenting one-upman-ship.  And that's something that just seems exhausting and awful.  It seems like the internet is flooded with the highlights of parenting always, which is great to see and a good pick me up, motivation to do better.  But when my girls become mothers and eventually look back on this blog with new perspective, I want them to see the truth of motherhood, the struggles as well as the highlights.  I want them to know that it wasn't easy to learn to be a good mother, and that that is OK.  It's OK that it's not fun all the time, or that you feel like you are drowning and losing yourself.  It's OK.  You can make it through and learn and grow in ways you never would be able to otherwise.  That's part of the plan.

So I guess I am saying that being a good mom is hard.  For reasons that I didn’t expect.  

After 6 years of parenting, I am still learning how to use my motherhood muscle, and I’m trying to figure out how to exercise my motherhood muscle without completely neglecting all my other muscles that I’ve spent the non-motherhood portion of my life defining & strengthening.  Some days we don’t make it out of our PJ’s and bedtime can’t come quickly enough.  Some days I sit and spend sweet moments with my children and am completely filled with pure joy.

I’m trying to figure out a way to experience more of the joy, and less of the stress, selfishness, and exhaustion.  Sometimes I feel like the more I try the less patience I have and I end up worse off, but I’m not going to stop trying. 

The past few weeks I’ve been waking up each morning dedicated to doing one service for each of my family members.  One kind thing, with no expectation of recognition or thanks, just something that I know will make them happy.  Something for Matt (which usually ends up being having dinner ready for him, or a clean kitchen, or something similar, nothing major going on, just something I know will make his day seem better), and something for each of the girls.  Doing this, and knowing that I am doing it with no motivation other than to improve the lives of the people I love has helped me find joy on my journey.

What has helped you find joy in your journey? (Seriously. I’m looking for suggestions.)