Hard

I have always wanted to be a mom.  And I have wanted to be a stay home mom for as long as I have thought about having kids.  

As a kid, I always loved kids.  Babysitting was my first choice of "jobs" and I considered it a compliment that kids always seem to gravitate to me.  My mom always joked that kids liked me because they thought I was one of them, given my short stature.  But I always thought they liked me because I was good with them.  And it felt good to be liked by kids.

When I was in college, I had daydreams about being a mom.  I remember volunteering at an elementary school as part of a sorority philanthropic event and playing with the kids on the school playground.  I daydreamed about what it would be like to just be a mom... to take my kids to the playground, push them on the swings, and enjoy the beautiful Autumn days with out a care in the world.  In my immature and inexperienced mind, I equated being a mom to being easy.  No stress.  After all, mom's didn't have research papers and mid terms and statistics teachers who made their head spin!

And then came the days when I was a "real" adult working in a semi-prestigious job.  I didn't have kids of my own yet, but I still reveled in the time I spent with other people's kids.  Vance's best friend had a young daughter and when we would visit them on the weekends during Vance's graduate school days, I spent the entire time playing with her.  She was four at the time.  I carried her everywhere, did her hair, and allowed the stresses from my job to melt away as we played restaurant and read books.  And again, in my inexperienced mind, being a stay home mom would primarily consist of doing those playful things.  No stresses.  Just easy.  Fun.  Carefree.

During my time as a professional, I also had fantasies about what my days would look like  if I were ever lucky enough to be a stay home mom.  When I would go to lunch with my work colleagues, I always took note of the stay home mom's who were lunching together too; fresh from their yoga class at the gym.  From my point of view, they had perfect bodies, lots of friends, and plenty of time to relax.  Their lives looked fabulous in comparison to my mandatory 60 chargeable hour work weeks.  Again, no stress.  What an easy life!

Six years into my marriage, I finally became a mom.  And even more than that, I was lucky enough to get to be a stay home mom!  And I thought, let the fun and easy days of mothering begin...

The first years were fairly easy; or at least they seem easy in hindsight.  Sure I had a baby who was extremely colicky, never slept, and had to wear a helmet because I was an ignorant first time mom who didn't enforce tummy time and let her kid's head get FLAT, but despite those things, I managed the stay home mom gig pretty well.  There were hard and frustrating times no doubt, but I fondly remember my first years as a stay home mom.  I savored moments, played on the floor, read lots of books, took gazillions of pictures, went on walks, and doted on every new and precious thing that my firstborn did.  I took pictures at a studio every 3 months and I even had an up to date baby book!  I don't recall lunching with my many friends after yoga class or playing all day long at the playground with out a care in the world, but for the most part, I think I thought being a stay home mom was pretty easy.

Little did I know I was just getting started!

I've been at this job for over seven years now and the truth of the matter is that being a stay home Mom isn't easy!  In fact, it is often hard.  And some days, it's really hard.

Don't get me wrong.  There is nothing else I would rather do.  I consider it an enormous blessing {and responsibility} to spend most every waking hour forming the little people God has entrusted to my care.

But let's be honest.  Motherhood is not a cake walk.  It's not for the faint of heart.  And dare I say...

it's hard!

It's hard because...

There is no such thing as time for yourself.  Ever.  And yoga pants?  Well, if I could fit my fat post-four-babies body into yoga pants, I certainly wouldn't be wearing them to lunch with my friends after a relaxing yoga class at the gym!  I would be wearing them to clean house and pick up kids and truth be told, as PJ's!  Because sometimes I don't even have time to change clothes!  I wear what I sleep in.  Embarrassing?  Yes.  True?  Sometimes!

It's hard because...

When you are a stay home mom to lots of littles, you spend your days making food that you have to argue with kids to eat and cleaning up the mess you made only to start on the next meal again in approximately one hour.  You change diapers, wipe bottoms, and squirt stain remover on the clothes that got poop on them during the daily "blow out" by your baby.  You do laundry, fold it, put it away, and feel accomplished for a millisecond before you look in the baskets and see that they are already half full again.  You pick up toys with every step you take, constantly putting something away so that you don't trip or fall or step on a lego that makes your foot bleed.  You work.  ALL.DAY.LONG. You work.  

It's hard because...

That doesn't include the energy you exert to instill values and faith and respect in your children.  The discipline that is required to raise children who are respectful and kind and obedient... it alone can send me into a puddle of tears on some days.  You break up fights, teach right from wrong, pray, praise, encourage, and yes, discipline.  You teach. ALL.DAY.LONG.  You teach.

It's hard because...

The "thanks" you get for all of your hard working and teaching most often comes in the form of complaints, negotiations, arguments, and rants about you being the meanest mommy in the world.  And your baby, who loves you so much that she can never, ever, be put down, screams at you every time you put her down to do the work and the teaching that is necessary to take care of the other littles in your household.  You listen to crying and complaining and sometimes screaming.  ALL.DAY.LONG.  You listen to noise.

So as much as I don't like to admit it, or even say it out loud, the truth is that being a stay home mom is hard.

And it's even harder in today's social media obsessed society.  Because every time I get on Facebook (under the misguided notion that it is a "brain break"), I see posts about how wonderful and perfect every other mother's life is.  Children are brilliant and funny and kind to their siblings and perfectly behaved... in Facebook land.  And then there are the blogs, oh the blogs!  I see mother's who do it all and still manage the time to document it on their colorful, graphic-designed blogs.  I can hardly find the time to cook so how in the world do these mom's have time to document their homemade, gluten free, non food dyed, organic meal-making adventures...step by step... with pictures?!?!  And then there's Pinterest.  On Pinterest, everybody lives in utopia.  Houses are beautifully decorated, holidays are celebrated with perfection, meals are home cooked, children never watch TV or play video games because they are doing crafts or other mind enriching activities, pantries and closets are perfectly organized and labeled, and everyone is skinny and completely on trend with their fashion.  

Talk about making a mom feel like a complete and total failure!  

That's how I feel when I admit that it's hard.  

Like a failure.

Like I'm missing a maternal gene that doesn't allow me to savor and cherish every single second of raising littles.  Or I've lost my "put in perspective" gene that continuously prompts me to remember that "this too shall pass" and that "one day I'm gonna miss this."

And then I feel guilty about it.  

Guilty because I can't live up to all the perfect mom's out there who do cherish every single second and who do cook from scratch and who do craft and bake and who do homeschool and who do it all with a smile on their face without ever an ounce of frustration or exhaustion.

I feel guilty because I'm not that mom.  

And I even guiltier because I want to be that mom.

But instead, I'm the mom that gets frustrated by the messes in the house.  I'm the mom that obsessively vacuums up crumbs instead of getting on the floor to play with my littles.  I'm the mom that says "in a minute" much too often.  I'm the mom who sometimes loses my temper instead of modeling behavior I want my children to use.  I'm the mom who feeds my kids casseroles made with "Cream of Something" in them.  I'm the mom who lets me kids watch too much T.V. and play too many electronic devices.  I'm the mom who eats cookies for a "pick me up" in the afternoon and then complains that my pre-baby clothes will never fit again.  I'm the mom who feels like she can't keep up. 

And I'm the mom who is too hard on  myself.

I've been struggling with this "feeling like a failure" theme for a while now.  I even alluded to it when I wrote about my desire for a performance review.  So it is likely not a coincidence that I happened upon this article today.  

I read it.  I laughed.  I cried.

I related to every single word of it.

And I felt so much better.  

Like I'm not the only mom in the world who takes on the weight of the child-rearing world and obsesses so much over whether or not I'm enjoying it enough, that I ultimately come to the conclusion that I am a failure at it.

I realized that I'm not the only one willing to admit that it's hard.

I continued to soak up this author's "Dear Mom" themed posts and felt even better after reading this.  

Motherhood is hard.

And it's okay to admit it.

Without feeling guilty.  

Even though I still feel a bit guilty when I think of how blessed and lucky I am.  Because even on my hardest of days, there are other people out there who have it so much harder than I do....

Women who long for more children, but are unable to conceive.
Mom's whose children are suffering from terrible illnesses.  
Mom's who lived my worst nightmare and lost one of their children.  
Mom's who are doing this hard job all by themselves.  
Mom's who, themselves, are suffering a devastating illness.
Mom's who desire to be stay home mom's, but don't have the ability to do so.

I often feel guilty admitting it's hard because I realize that there are others who would count it a blessing to stand in my shoes.

But the bottom line is that admitting we feel challenged even by the little struggles does not make us insensitive to those whose struggles are larger.  And every one of us is a different kind of mother.  Some of are really good at staying positive all the time.  Some of us aren't.  Some of us are really good at cooking fabulous meals.  Some of us aren't.  Some of us are good at living in the moment.  Some of us aren't.  Some of us are good at allowing motherhood to refine us.  Some of us are still working on it... years after making the discovery :)

We aren't all good at the same things and there is no such thing as a perfect mother. 

Accepting our weaknesses and admitting that it's sometimes hard does not make us a failure.  And it does not make us insensitive.

It just makes us human.

Human mothers doing the very best that we can to teach and cook and clean and organize and dress and fold and drive and bathe and nourish and discipline and encourage and support and love the little people that have been entrusted to us by a Father who thinks that we are the perfect people to raise them up to know, love and serve Him.

*****  

I often struggle with whether or not to share feelings of this nature on my blog.  I don't want my blog to be a "debbie downer" type of blog; especially since it is ultimately my children who will read these thoughts some day.  It is my goal and desire to constantly "celebrate the little things" in my life, to live in and cherish the moments, and to "fill my glass", but getting to that place is a constant  journey and dare I say, struggle.  I share these raw and honest thoughts in hopes of encouraging some one else who may be feeling like they don't measure up to an unrealistic "mommyhood" standard.  Even though most of the time I only post pictures of smiling and happy children, my life is not perfect.  Blessed, but certainly not perfect.  No one's is.  Even though Facebook and Pinterest  might make you feel otherwise.  So if you are a mom who feels like all you see is "perfect mommyhood posts and pictures", I hope you feel encouraged by this post!

****

One last disclaimer... 

While I reference being a stay home mom in this post, it is only because that is where I am in my own motherhood.  I recognize that being a working mom is just as hard (maybe harder!) and that whether we are working from home, outside the home, or not working at all... motherhood can still be hard :)