Mom Life: Do We Really Want To Do It All?
When I go for coffee at Pura Vida with my fellow mom friends, most of them are just…happy. They sit there sipping their vanilla almond milk lattes and smile genuinely. Genuinely. A real smile. Not a fake one. It’s unnerving and, frankly, makes me question my whole being. How can these smart, beautiful women be so content in being “just” a mom? How lucky are they that going to Pilates and getting their nails done and changing diapers and reading baby books is enough to fill their cup? Why can’t I be that way? Why do I need to write to feel something close to fulfillment? And I’m not saying this in an arrogant way; I really do mean it, why is being a stay-at-home mom enough for them and not enough for me?
The thing is, being a working mom doesn’t take away from the endless workload we have at home. It’s not that working gives me less mom time, it just gives me more work on top of the mom work – the laundry, the dishes, the endless doctors’ appointments, the elaborate toddler meals, the mystery reader days in school, the over the top birthday parties, gymnastics camps, piano lessons – and then add three hours of writing in the morning to that instead of going for a lymphatic drainage massage. Why do I do this to myself if I have the privilege of not having to?
I think one of the reasons is because being a stay-at-home mom isn’t really appreciated by the outside world. Of course, people say that stay-at-home moms have the most difficult job, that they’re doing the lord’s work, that they’re amazing and strong and selfless, but they don’t really mean it, do they? Don’t you feel like, deep down, people – men – roll their eyes at women who are, essentially, unemployed? Don’t you think somewhere deep down they are deeply looking down on us?
You can argue that it doesn’t really matter what they think, what anybody thinks, but for some reason this bothers me. I want to scream to the world, “I’m smart, I swear! I have a master’s degree and I published a book and I might not know anything about the stock market or geography but I can tell you about Nietzsche and Nabokov and how Lena Dunham became one of the most successful modern writers of our time.” I realize these are my own insecurities making their way out into the world, but I can’t help but feel like being a stay-at-home mom puts me in this category of only being interesting to other stay-at-home moms and not to regular working adults. Like, what would my husband admire more – a delicious home cooked meal or a $250,000 book deal that I worked endlessly to earn on my own? The right answer is both. The right question is what would I admire more? The right answer is the book deal.
Being a mom is the greatest gift on the face of planet earth. Being a mom is my first priority, my biggest blessing, the source of my true, pure happiness. But I want to be more. There’s the mom in me, and then there’s the writer in me; the flame in my soul that won’t go out, no matter how long it flickers.
So how do we do it all? Or better yet, do we want to do it all?
Everyone’s different. If you can be content in being “just” a mom, I’m all for that. I admire that. Part of me wishes I felt the same.
But if you have that urge to be more, to do more, to show your children you can give from yourself but also give to yourself, you have to act on it. No matter how hard following your dream is going to be, no matter how much more work the daily grind adds to your mom life. Feed the flame in your soul. You can do both. You have to. For your children.
For you.
Xo