Last Updated on February 24, 2020 by admin
When the living room is piled up with laundry to fold and there are papers all over the table, what if you could walk by it without wanting to cry?
When the kids chase each other around the house with underwear on their heads, what if you could just laugh and enjoy the moment?
When the dinner dishes don’t fit in the dishwasher, what if you could leave them there until morning?
When the work emails come in at 9:30 pm, what if you could pretend you never checked it? What if you could get in the habit of actually NOT checking it?
What if you canceled or said no to that next obligation simply because you didn’t want to do it? No excuses made—you just don’t want to.
What if you just called in to work the next time your child was not feeling well instead of forcing a losing situation and strategizing the line of defense when the whole thing inevitably blows up?
What if you just threw your hands up and said, ”enough!?”
Motherhood is hard in a way that no one prepares you for. For possibly the first time in our lives, we feel great pressure to be everything to everybody and to do it wearing lipstick, heels, and a smile, snapping selfies and posting to Instagram along the way. We are expected to be the great cooks that our grandmothers are and the house cleaners that our mothers are, and somehow, we are supposed to juggle all of that with careers, daycare, school parties, doctor appointments, and our own self-care! How can we find balance as a mom?
And no doubt, we also feel the burden of doing Motherhood better—using organic ingredients, avoiding toxic products, hosting Pinterest birthday parties, coaching their competition league teams and all this while facing challenges the generations before us never faced–navigating the new childhood epidemics of special needs, IEPS and 504’s, along with technology pitfalls, and feeling like any parenting misstep may go viral if the wrong person happened to snap a picture of the moment!
What if we collectively decided to take parenting down a notch?
Look, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, but prioritize! What is a deal breaker for you and your family? And what areas can you stand to give on a bit? Bringing this into focus can help you decide what is actually worth juggling and what’s worth letting go. This is an important step in finding balance.
Make a SHORT list of your non-negotiables and plan your life around them.
When my kids were toddlers, our three non-negotiables were healthy food, naps, and an early bedtime with a story. That’s it!
That means we missed out on three year old soccer, cool events downtown, and running many necessary errands.
Is this the only way or the right way? No, of course not, but it was for US!
As a result, our children began their sports lives a few years behind their peers, but we made the decision to wait until they were mature enough to function without tantrums during the day. Life felt easier for all of us when they weren’t overtired and overstimulated on junk food.
Now that they are older, we have revised that short list: God, Health, Sleep, and School. Your list might be different, and that’s totally ok! Your life is different! Your children are different!
letting go of other priorities is not easy!
I WANT A CLEAN HOUSE!
I WANT TO BE HOMEROOM MOM!
I WANT TO SERVE MORE IN CHURCH!
I WANT TO ENJOY MAKING CRAFTS AND INSTAGRAM MEMORIES WITH THE KIDS!
I WANT TO BE FIT AND ATHLETIC AND BEAUTIFUL!
I WANT MY MARRIAGE TO BE MORE ROMANTIC!
But… your inner resources are finite, mom. Go easy on yourself and rest. Stick to your short list of non-negotiables and try to squeeze in some of your desireables along the way.
Forgive yourself when you fall short.
Let something go…
and don’t apologize.
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