Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The Inadequate Mother

Do you ever just feel so ridiculously inadequate as a mom you can't believe that you are responsible for the lives of small children?

I do not know, and will never understand how some of you do it all.

Martha Stewart I am not
Bethenny Frankel is annoying to me but I like what she has done for herself but the OCD needs to be slapped out of her
Rachael Ray seems like someone I'd hang with because I bet she would let a dish soak in the sink over night.
I rarely can get laundry done folded and put away in the same day.
My mother in law must think she is in a contest to clean the world because the woman NEVER stops no matter whose house she is at mine, hers, her other kids, it's a psychotic need she has to have a spray bottle and towel in her hand and be wiping up some mess.

In the month and a half since I have been at work the ridiculous guilt I feel when my 2 year old is crying when I leave every day is palpable.
I don't have my Halloween candy purchased
I don't know what they are going to be for Halloween
I don't have Halloween cards or gifts for everyone at school
I am not ready for Christmas, have no idea what anyone is getting and how we are even going to pay for Christmas this year
i don't know where we are eating Thanksgiving and frankly I don't care.

Maybe I need to stop watching the TV and thinking the women of Bravo are a lesson in how to be a good wife and mom.

I came out of such a dark and scary year and I want to be good and do so many things that I feel inadequate at them all now.  I want to be the good mom, the good wife, the good employee, daughter, friend, sister, and Aunt.  I want to be the good runner and athlete, and the best blogger and good writer, and the list goes on and on.  Right now I feel like I'm sucking at everything being a mom, a worker, a blogger, and an athlete.  I'm slacking in everything and I need to step it up.  But why????

I am a good mom, my kids are happy, we kick Autism down the road every day and chip away at it as best we can, I try my best to exercise 20 minutes daily, I try to eat decent, some days just going to work and caring for my kids is the best I can do, and I think that should be enough for the most part.  I keep the house in decent shape (but it does drive my mother in law nuts)  We are like Everybody loves Raymond, no matter how much I spent cleaning she would always find something else to clean or clean it better.  I'm over the contest, she wins.

I will always be the mom who needs coffee to get through a day, and I will always be the mom who is laughing at something terrible and inappropriate.  I want to be the mom who stays home with her kids but right now I need to work and help provide for our family.  So I need to s silence the noise in my head that I'm not doing anything right, because I am doing what is in front of me, just like we all are.

So tomorrow I will make sure my kids eat 3 meals, that I get my time in at work, that everyone gets to their proper therapies and the dishes and stuff get done and I will say hi to my husband as we pass in the night while he is doing crazy overtime hours for the next couple weeks.  If I get to vacuum and get a load of laundry and dishes done and get a workout in and put everyone to sleep the day will be a success, and hopefully I will chip away at the feelings of inadequacy and know that doing the best I can is sometimes good enough.


Rebecca

2 comments:

  1. Oh my dear sweet lord do I love you.

    I'm learning to be okay with mediocre. It's not easy, as a recovering Type A, to say that. But I am.

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  2. I'm going to say this over here and not on my blog, as my mom reads my blog.

    Growing up, I remember:

    The time she jumped rope with me.

    The time my dad came into our bedroom on a Saturday morning when we were waking up and told us stories about his childhood.

    The time my mom sat down with me and drew horses.

    And a dozen other happy memories.

    I also remember being physically nauseous at the stress level in my house as my mom tried to be perfect - to keep the house spotless, to win the laundry battle, to cook good meals, to have the living room picked up. I remember many, many unhappy evenings full of stress and angry door slamming and just surviving, because we never seemed to be able to relax.

    You sound like you're a great mom. I have Halloween costumes, but only because I went to that Camp Spooky thing. The laundry monster has won - 100% defeated me. But I did invent a new game to play with my sons yesterday, so I'm cool with that. Today I wore Ugg boots (dirty, old ones) because I couldn't find any sandles and there were NO NO NO clean socks ANYWHERE in the house. I even tried to see if DragonMonkey's socks fit me. So if you ever get truly stressed, just remember that you're not the WORST mom in Orange County :) And in fact, after pouring through your archives, I'd say you're one of the best ones.

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