To the other moms out there: No, we don't have it all under control. No, you're not alone in feeling a little overwhelmed sometimes - or even all the time, and feeling that the best you can manage most of the time is organized chaos. Or maybe even just chaos.
Some mornings we wake up feeling like we can take on the world and having a list of chores we are sure we will get done! Then a kid gets sick, or we step out of bed and break a toy under our foot, or we realize we're out of frozen dinners. Then by the time we get the kids in bed at night we feel it's all we can manage to brush our teeth before crashing into bed. We're lucky if we got one thing done.
But that's what we should focus on - that one thing! Rejoice! If you accomplished one task for yourself, that's something! Don't focus on everything you didn't do, that's for tomorrow, or the day after, or to call and ask your mom, or your husband to help with. We all feel like failures sometimes, but don't be afraid to ask for help, we all need it sometimes.
And don't think that you are less than or defective, you aren't. If it makes you feel any better, those men that help with the house work and raising the kids while the woman also works out of the house (or is the only one working out of the house), they struggle too! Sometimes they might think 'well all you did is watch the kids all day,' then you leave them alone for a day with the children and you get home and they look panicked!
Parenting isn't an easy job, but it's one of the most important jobs you can have! But it's just life! Just because your kid may not be potty-trained yet. Or he can count but doesn't have a concept of the colors, or there is only one shirt from his closet he wants to wear every day and he cries when you wash it - that doesn't mean you are failing. Just keep going, just take it one day at a time. Each small accomplishment is an accomplishment. Rejoice in what you have and can do!
"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself... " - Matthew 6:34a (KJV)
~ G.G. Marshall
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