How True...

My friend Kim recently posted this article on her blog, and I thought I'd share with some of my other "mommy" friends...

A woman wrote into the Washington Post, complaining about her friends with kids, and questioning if these mommy friends were really all that busy or just pushing her off.

This is Carolyn Hax’s response, printed in the Washington Post:

“When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm’s way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.

It’s needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.

It’s constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.

It’s constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It’s resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone’s long-term expense.

It’s doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything — language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.”


Mom's, can I get an AMEN? Seriously. There's no way I could have said it better myself! I often find myself at a loss for words when describing exactly what my typical day is like when someone asks. I'll go through my (sometimes short) list of things Ive accomplished, and I can almost sense the other person thinking, "Wow. That's it? Doesn't sound too hard to me." I wish that every single person could walk in the shoes of a stay-at-home mom just for a week. And No, I'm absolutely not complaining. Being Preston's wife, Sawyer's Mommy, and the keeper of our home is the highest calling I'll ever have. To me, it's the best job in the entire world. Is it sometimes thankless, frustrating, tiring, or stressful? You bet. But it's so worth it to me.
I guess I'm just really glad that Mrs. Hax decided to write this. It put my everyday life into words. I'm so thankful that there are other people who recognize that the job of being someones mommy is real work.