Last week as I was trying to squeeze in a blog post for the
week, I pulled out my laptop at the dining table while Caitlin did her
homework. We were chatting, me kind of chatting, because when the word strikes
you, you type, when she stopped and said,
“Mommy, can you stop typing?”
Cue the dreaded mommy guilt.
I get it. I’ve been working a lot since my promotion and
this is all new to them and this family as a whole. Especially Caitlin who was
born to a mother too damn anxious to do more than one thing at a time. But as
she grew, I grew too. I grew into a multi tasker and a writer and a kind of okay
cook. I grew to be less anxious, and with time I became braver. All the things
that I needed to get me to here. A full time working mom, who is still trying
to launch a writing career; run a girl scout troop; be a good wife; and be a
kick ass mother. But I can tell she is pretty confused at how her crazy,
scatterbrained, fumbling mom, could pull any of that off.
So as the mommy guilt settled in I replied,
“Mommy has homework too”.
I went on to explain that mommy still wants to write stories
on her blog. That her new job is important, kind of like school is important
for her. But there are still other things that mommy wants to do, and in order
to do them, I have homework. Still pushed the laptop to the side and helped
her with word problems, which in my opinion are ridiculous. Who cares how many
apples Sally has in comparison to Bobby, and who cares if Sally gives them to
Issac so how many does Jill have? Tell me that is not an honest assessment of
word problems. I helped and discussed and even joked about word problems
and we made up a few of our own. Then I gave both girls a bath, and Caitlin
read a story to us, and then I read a story to them, and finally when they were
asleep and in bed, I picked my laptop back up.
There will always be the internal struggle of am I doing
this right, am I devoting enough of me and my time to this mothering life. There will always be that voice in the back of my head that says, “give
up this blog”, “you have more important things to do than type away at this
keyboard”, but I know, deep down that the voice is wrong. There are a million
mothers who work and mother and write or blog or dance or cook or run million
dollar empires. That is life. And even if many mothers I know aren’t running
million dollar empires, they are running family empires of their own, with
brilliant and well rounded children, happy husbands, and sometimes the
occasional Etsy shop. Some of them home school, some of them coach dance, some
of them volunteer for their churches. Every mother has that internal struggle
of how much time can I give, and how much can I take for myself?
A wise friend once told me that taking time for myself would
make me a better mother. I can jive with that. There is some truth there. Taking
time for yourself is so important. We tend to sacrifice ourselves and our time.
Like I’ve written about, I’ve been doing things for motherhood for awhile. But
recently I’ve been doing things for me, more and more. In the beginning, this
blog was my escape, my therapy, my little slice of Megan. Then it grew into
something more. It’s a major accomplishment that I”m still writing it, somewhat
daily after almost four years. I’m quite proud of that.
But even with pride comes the guilt. The nights I should be
doing any number of things, but instead I’m writing. Typing away as the kids
play and eat chips and watch terrible television. I recently saw an old episode
of Grey’s Anatomy and it was one where Meredith had just adopted Zola. And of
course as any new mother knows, holding on to your old life and trying to do
you new one is damn right impossible. So there she was, dropping Zola off at
Callie and Arizona’s again, and she meets Callie at the door with tears in her
eyes. It’s what Callie says that struck me most. She said something like, “no,
no, no. Don’t. Don’t do that. It’s good for her to see you work. It’s good for
her to see YOU”. That stuck with me. No matter your work, it’s good for your
children to see you do it. It shows them that you are more than just mom, you
are a person. Kids need to see that. They also need to see that we make
mistakes. Because mistakes are okay, as long as we learn from them. So while we
may be inundated with guilt, it’s good for them to see us work. It’s good for
them to see us commit. It’s good for them to see us fail, to see us get up and
try again, to see us work so hard toward that end goal, no matter what it may
be.
Even today as I try to squeeze in time to write, while the
laundry tumbles and the kids eat grilled cheese, I’m working on me. This is my
homework. Even if it has little to do with my day job, it has everything to do
with my all the time job, which is being a mother. So while I try to eliminate
word problems from my life (because I don’t care how many candies Joey has), I’ll
keep reminding myself and my girls that mommies have homework too. Because even
after all this time, I’m still working on me.
