What It Means To Be a Mom
“Army of one.”
“Accelerate your life.”
Although these slogans are used to recruit men and women into the military, they could easily be used to describe the motherhood
experience.
Two kids are running through the house with scissors. In the corner, their little sister is hidden. (Insert cheesy theme music here). The camera focuses in on the mother just when she discovers her daughter in the corner; a duct tape mummy with tears streaming down her face. Mom looks into the camera, a forced smile on her face wearing an expression that screams “Get me out of here! They’re monsters!” As the theme music comes to an abrupt stop, Voice Over Guy says, “Motherhood. It’s not a job, it’s an adventure.”
A camera scans a kitchen. Dirty dishes are in the sink and Cheerios are spread across the floor. A bathroom is shown next, with fine baby hair in a pile next to the sink and a pair of scissors is hidden behind the toilet. A small child with an inverted Mohawk looks innocently into the camera. Next, we see the laundry room. Four baskets heaping with dirty clothes are surrounding the washing machine. Clothes site on the top of the dryer. In the living room, a man sits in a recliner watching the Green Bay Packers play. He is mesmerized by Brett Favre. The only time he notices the screaming children running through the room is when they run in front of the television. Music plays and Voice Over Guy says, “Motherhood. The army of one.”
And let me tell you, nothing will accelerate your life more than coming home from the grocery store to be met by your sister-in-law and being told your baby is in the ER because he split his eyebrow open on the corner of the toy box. Or hearing older children shout mean things out of the bus window as your four year old comes up the driveway. And that fearless, middle child that climbs and swings from anything, no matter how high off the ground, will accelerate your life and take ten years off of it at the same time.
Being a parent is a hard job. I realize I am responsible for every aspect of life for these little people. I still panic when I realize how enormous of a responsibility that is. I can’t even keep fish alive. Or silk plants for that matter. What am I doing raising these little people that will no doubt end up in therapy because of me some day?
It’s all my mom’s fault, really. No, really, it is. When I was a kid, being a mother seemed so easy. The house was always clean, meals were always shared together and served hot, and my mother was always calm. Now that I am a mother myself, I realize it was all a grand illusion. My mother wasn’t calm, she was exhausted. The house was always clean because when she was irritated, annoyed, or mad; she cleaned. And the meals were always hot and balanced because cooking in the kitchen was her change to get away from all of us. Penn & Teller have nothing on the illusion my mother conjured up for over twenty years.
Parenting magazines are of no help. One mother they tell me that the proper way to build self-esteem in your children is to follow the advice of Dr. I – Don’t – Have – Kids, and the next month they have Dr. I – Have – Kids – And – A – Housekeeper – And – Super Nanny claiming the exact opposite. And when I leave through the current issue as soon as it arrives at my door, all I really see are advertisements. I feel like I need to fix my credit so I can take out a personal loan in order to afford all these things that will help my children’s imaginations and make my kids happy. We all know every parent wants their kids to be happy and the children in the ads appear to be, well, happy.
Don’t even get me started on the homes in parenting magazines. I am in aw of how clean, and expensive, everything is. Especially since the advertisement shows eight kids under the age of seven, two dogs, a cat, a smiling mom, and a partridge in a pear tree. But, I will tell you a secret. When you have small children, this really isn’t reality. When you have any children at all, this isn’t reality.
Reality is that sometimes you are too busy comforting your children to worry about the dishes. Playing tag with your kids becomes more important than mopping the floor. Sometimes, you want to read the latest chick lit instead of vacuuming the floor. Kids like playing with an empty box more than the expensive toys inside of it. And nothing develops an imagination more than pretending a laundry basket is a car and pushing it down that hallway with your daughter, not dirty clothes, in it. Welcome to reality. Welcome to motherhood.
