Here is the post from www.memoriesoncloverlane.com:
"Nowdays it is rare to see a mother just be a mom.
I felt this pressure that I must do more when my oldest children were little. I remember one time, maybe a decade ago, I talked with my mom about it. And she said this to me and it has really really stuck with me forever. "You don't have to do everything all at once!" It's so true. But we are constantly given the opposite message all the time.
I see many women juggling jobs and motherhood. (I do realize that their are times in our lives as mothers that we HAVE to do this, to attempt to get to that point in our life where we don't.) I see the busy lifestyle, the coming and going, the late nights, the early mornings, the back and forth...some women can handle it well and really enjoy the challenge of the pace, some stay afloat knowing things might get easier soon, some make it work with lots of help from grandparents and a willing husband, and some seem about to burst. It's not for me and I'm glad I found that out early enough. I'll opt out, thank you very much, because I know I'd be one of the "bursting" ones.
Why should I feel like I must make these years so jam-packed? I think it's the message we are being sent...
All around me, women I love, tell me differently. My aunts, my mother, even my grandmother...they all stayed home, and once their kids were older, some went back to school, got Master's and/or Doctorate's...some became Life Flight nurses, heads of social services agencies, professors, authors, politicians, consultants traveling the world....on and on. FIRST they did one thing, and THEN when they were able to transition into not being SO needed, they did another thing.
I'm saying this: We DON'T have to do it all at once. That's a load of blarney we have been fed....a fairy tale of "Super Woman" that sometimes ends with Super Woman being Exhausted, Crabby, Resentful, Pissed Off, Stretched Too Thin Woman.
Now, trust me, I have a small list of things I'd love to be involved in one day. But if I start to feel like I'm wasting my time now, being at home, I will not be the kind of person I want to be...purposeful, calm and happy. It's a big job this "mother" thing. It's not something to cram inbetween a half dozen other "life-callings". We have our WHOLE lives ahead of us...we don't need to just "live" in our 20's and 30's and 40's.
Spread it out.
One thing at a time.
Have fun and don't cram it all in.
AND THIS IS FROM ANOTHER POST FROM THE SAME BLOG:
One of the things I have had to accept is my need for a quiet, focused family life. I tried for years and years to create balance with work, obligations, and family. I tried for years to keep up with the pace I see many mothers handle. I would hear about "juggling" many things at once, and would wonder, "Why am I such a terribly awful juggler?" I would attempt again and again to keep plates in the air, I would compare myself to others who seemed to do a wonderful job at it, I would be envious at their juggling skills, and time and time again, I would fail. Fail meant exhaustion, fail meant guilt at what I felt was unfocused attention to my family, fail meant a general feeling of malaise at what I felt was a half-way job at everything I was trying to accomplish, fail meant a jumbled brain that never felt peace. After several attempts I decided that all this juggling just wasn't for me.
The kicker was getting home each day, with a whiny toddler who was hungry, my older son who had homework that he needed help with, and my daughter, who halfway through the year told me she wished she hadn't even joined. It was really a disaster from start to finish. I would be snappy and crabby, and spent...I would go to bed feeling bad, and honestly, (remember, honesty is the key!) I deserved to feel guilty. But I hated the feeling of guilt. I hated the feeling that I took out my frustrations on my children and my husband. So I knew I had to change something. I realized that this sort of commitment wasn't for me. I didn't enjoy it, and I could see it wasn't benefiting any of us.
Children have little or no say in the way we set up their lives for them, and in the pace we set for them, and in the way these things effect how we react to them. What children really want, I think, is a calm, settled, predictable home life. A mother who is not frazzled, angry, stressed, or impatient. A mother who in in tune to their needs. I began to realize that joining a travel sports team that had us missing dinner every night and separated on the weekends, was giving far less an advantage to our son than spending time with his parents and siblings. I began to realize that bringing in a little extra income wasn't worth the amount of stress it brought to all of our lives.
I had so many other experiences like this, as I tried something new, and realized that once again, it wasn't working. I knew what I wanted more than anything was less "gasket blowing" days, and more calm, joyful days.
I decided to look at my good days with my children, the days I really felt like I was an attentive happy mother and wife, and analyze the circumstances that created that day. I also decided to look at the bad days, and find a common denominator. I came to realize that many of those days, I had planned just too much. I started noticing the good days had a slower rhythm to them, a day when I wasn't rushed to get in to the car to go here or there or anywhere. Sure, some bad days are just bad days from things we can't control...sick kids, sleepless nights, just a funky day, or a hard stage in family life. But many times the choices we have made determine the pace we set. I started making conscience decisions about the tempo I wanted to establish for my family because I had enabled myself to see what worked for us. FOR US. Not for my friend and her children, not because I had read in magazine I should be doing this and that for my children's social growth, not because I couldn't say no without feeling guilty.
I knew that I would be happier with less...less money, but more than anything, also much less responsibility. My brain felt overcrowded...and what was getting crowded out were the things that really mattered.
I also realized that every brain works differently. My husband is wonderful at compartmentalizing his different roles. His brain I think, has little rooms with doors, and when he walks out of one room so to speak, into another, he can slam that door and all the stress, deadlines, responsibility stay shut in there. My brain doesn't have doors, heck it doesn't have walls. I feel all the stress from all the responsibilities all the time. Stress effects how we act every day and I realized that when I felt really happy and content I choose to do one thing, and one thing well. Sure, there could be other little things mixed up with all that, but I wanted to dedicate most of that space to be the best mother and wife I could be which was more important to me than anything else. By discovering and acknowledging and then accepting the way I am wired-my low stress threshold, my brain with no doors and walls-that acceptance moved me forward-out of guilt and comparisons, and into the empowering ability to make strong choices for my family.
This journey of self-knowledge is not over I am sure. I have decades of more mistakes ahead of me as my family changes and evolves over time. We have all the signs we need when something is not right...our spirits, when we are still, will tell us. Our children, in their behavior, in their tender, purely good souls will show us if they are thriving or just surviving the lives we are forcing them to lead. Our marriage, our relationships, will become smooth sailing , or angry resentment. Knowing and accepting myself, and knowing my deep desire to fulfill the dream of how I want these years of motherhood to look for me, allows me to see the big picture, and make brave changes in the little snapshots of everyday life."
I couldn't have said it better myself...
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