I have spent the last 55 straight days baking in my kitchen. There’s been tie-dying in my front yard, and TikToking in my living room. Dear mom, I’m not a cook. In fact, I am not even the sort of gal that finds the kitchen all that life-giving. Most of my time in the galley growing up was spent cleaning up.
Let me start by saying this is not a broad-brush approach to how you should or could or even want to raise your kids in a time that none of us can escape.
I’m sure you’ve heard it said a time or two in the recent weeks, oh wait, month. “I’m bored.” My response, “Me too!” While I must admit I don’t miss my job as uber mom in this season of parenting, less extra curricular activities have left large gaps of time throughout our day.
I was walking my dog in the neighborhood we had been renting. I stood at the top of a hill to catch my breath and looked up.
“God, if we are going to be able to buy a house here—you’re going to have to give it to us.”
My time away from social media confirmed it: My problem is me. It’s easy to blame things, people or culture for the angst we feel, or the tension we have. The truth remains that the only thing we possess total power to change is “me.”
I recently read a post that described how to be a mom in 2019. “Make sure your children’s academic, emotional, psychological, mental, spiritual, physical, nutritional and social needs are met,” while being careful, “not to overstimulate, underestimate, improperly medicate, helicopter, or neglect them,” while maintaining, “a screen-free, processed foods-free, plastic-free, body-positive, socially-conscious, egalitarian (yet authoritative), nurturing, while fostering an ethos of independence, gentle, but not overly permissive, pesticide-free, two-story, multilingual home, preferably on a cul-de-sac, with an earth-first backyard.” Oh yeah, “And don’t forget the coconut oil!”
I’ve now entered into what I have referred to is as the sweet spot of motherhood. All my kids can wipe themselves, get dressed and keep themselves more or less clean. They go to school seven hours a day, and there is way more time for me to do things for me. They can participate in competitive sports, which keeps weekends busy, but entertaining. And they are funny around the dinner table in their own rights, as their unique senses of humor have blossomed. I’ve given myself permission to have more fun. Fun with my kids. Turns out, mothering can still be lots of pressure, but we don’t have to forget the fun.
Most of us didn’t get married to be unhappy. We don’t stand before a crowd of God and our loved ones on our wedding day and dream of eventually standing in a courtroom dividing property, money and custody of our kids. We decided this wouldn’t be us. It couldn’t be. But a curveball in our compatibility that we had not encountered before led us to seek the same source in a different way. A more desperate, dependent way
