I was tagged by Alyssa from Life From My Laptop for one of the best memes I've seen yet . The point of the meme is to share a lesson you've learned about motherhood with other moms. The lessons can be from your own mother, from someone you know, or from past experience; there are no right or wrong answers. This meme was started by Christina over at Mom's Resource Blog. I love this idea because there's so much we can learn from each other as moms. Being a parent really is the hardest job I've ever known. I'm happy to share things I've learned along the way and welcome any advice from my friends, but also it's just what we do as women - we share, we look to others for support. Women are very relational.
The lesson I have to share should be nothing new, but it's something that just really hit home for me today. I've been very stressed out lately about the amount of time, or lack thereof, that I have to spend online to meet my new career objectives as a writer and blogger. As many of you know, it takes a lot of work to establish an online presence, and it's quite time consuming to market yourself and to find avenues for your writing. And, as so very many of you also know, it's even more of a challenge to do all of this while raising a family, particularly if you don't have daycare.
So I've taken stock and revised my approach to my career, at least while Brady is so young. But I've been finding that my mind is still on all the work I SHOULD be doing while I'm tending to my household and family duties. It finally hit me this morning that all of this stressing and obsessing is ridiculous and is only causing me to be anxious and irritable with my loved ones. We had a terrible time today during the morning routine, and I got very frustrated with my kids because mommy was trying to get some work done and they were interrupting. As I felt my frustration build, I finally had my "ah ha moment".
A person can't allow herself to be pulled in a thousand directions and expect to be happy and content. Yes, I have career and monetary aspirations that I'd like to meet, but not at the expense of my children's happiness. Pursuing a writing career was supposed to allow me more flexibility and time to be with my children more. But I need to really be with them. In the moment, and not worrying about what's not getting done.
I immediately approached the day with this new philosophy. I didn't work on my computer at all today while Brady was awake, only while he was napping. When the kids came home, I spent time with each of them. We talked about their day, they helped with dinner, I helped with homework. I felt truly in the moment. Not rushed or hurried. It's nearly 10:00 pm now when I'm finishing up this blog post and still have about two more to write, but I don't feel nearly as tired as I thought I would. I suppose it's more tiring to allow yourself to be pulled in so many directions than to just live in the moment and really enjoy the time.
This is the most significant lesson I've learned about motherhood recently, and I hope I can continue to remember its impact. Please let me know if you've experienced a similar struggle and if you have any advice that will help me to live in the moment. Take a look at Alyssa's Motherhood Lessons as well.
I'm supposed to tag 3 - 5 other moms for this meme, but I'm going to cheat. I'm not cheating for the sole purpose of getting out of choosing people, but because I really do think this is such a valuable meme, and I'd like to tag all the moms who read this post. If you don't have a blog, you can just leave a comment. If you choose to share your motherhood lessons at your blog, leave the link to your post in the comment section.
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