I’m a full time stay at home mom. It’s funny that one of the world’s biggest jobs is just three little letters, M-O-M. Within these three letters you will find personal chef, maid services, laundry services, taxi cab, banker, coach, teacher, decorator, therapist, nurse, errand boy, peace officer and judge. Using every last drop of energy and patience I have left after a grueling day with my type of “boss”; who I promise you can be much much harder to deal with than any boss you may have, I moonlight as a wife. W-I-F-E, another big job that has such an unassuming title, its ironic when you think of all the hats a wife should wear. There are no weekends for me, or time off, I’m the entire world for one little boy and one great man and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
There are so many things I never understood about my own parent’s until we became parent’s ourselves. I used to feel so sorry for my mom growing up because in my eye’s she didn’t seem to have a bunch of friends or go out very much. I now know as a full time mommy and wife you really don’t have extra time and energy to cultivate friendships and your very lucky if you “fall” into the type that doesn’t need the attention that can rival the BFFS of 12 year old girls. My parents have amazing friends, life long ones, the Lands. The Lands are the other half of my parents. They are the people you admire and want to be like, that encourage you to keep going, and always understand when not to ask a question and just agree much like you do with a child who never wants to go to the doctor again. I have so many memories of good times growing up with the love my parents have in this relationship. As a child the Lands were just like parents to me, they weren’t the cool aunt or uncle figure that you thought you needed to impress or that you could vent and tell them how much you hate your parents because they won’t let you come home at 3 am after a date with an awesome guy who is in a fraternity when your 16. You wouldn’t tell the Lands these things because they would put a stop to it, not encourage it.
As a parent now, this is something I value more than anything. One day you grow up from that crazy teen you were and most times you end up outgrowing the cool adult you wanted to impress so much, but you never outgrow the Lands in your life much like you never outgrow your parents. .
We are lucky, we have our MOTHS, although our “Lands” would be the Moores, we get an entire support system along with them. The Moores are our other half, if everyone is walking around with a twin out there then they are the twins of our souls. There are no scores kept with them, or bad feelings. It’s a relationship built on respect and the type of unconditional love you rarely find. If something ever happened to us we know there are plenty of people who would love and want to raise our child but he would never have anything closer to us as parents and people as the Moores, and that gives us an overwhelming feeling of happiness. Then there is our O, our sister of sorts that shares the same personality as I. Leaving our T, oh our difficult little T. It took some time for the T to grow on us, but after they did we all realized it was their independent attitude that we were more jealous of then put off by. We are an odd bunch, all very different, but we come together with love and respect to create a safe environment for one another to banish their demons and grow into who they want to become.
Which brings me back to point: I am a full time mom and wife, this is more than a job, this is my life and my family’s future. I fear everyday of passing on the same insecurities that I have to my child, and I can see some of them coming through in him. I try not to get to emotional or upset in front of him because he doesn’t understand that someone said mean things to his mommy in anger and that’s why she is crying, all he sees is a hurt mommy. He has a hard time understanding when Daddy leaves if Mommy is crying that it is only because she is going to miss him not because something bad just happened that caused Daddy to go. It’s nature that every action causes a reaction, but it isn’t always the case in human behavior, sometimes reactions just are reactions not because of a single action but several built up ones. This is a hard lesson that most adults don’t even seem to learn, let alone a toddler. There is nothing as soul crushing as a mother to have their child come up and say “Mommy your crying, I’m sorry I’ll be good”, when he hasn’t done anything wrong but feels the blame. I never want my child to feel the bad or the sad in the grown up world, but I’m only human and that’s a very big job for even two people. I said I used to feel sorry for my mom that she didn’t seem to have many friends, but what I realize now is she wasn’t alone she was Super Mom with a cape sewn by the love of people like the Lands. I have never seen my parents argue or either of them cry for reasons that were not caused by at least one of us kids, but I’m sure the Lands have.
It has been a hard few months and incredibly hard last few weeks, and without the support of people like our MOTHS and family, it would be very hard for us to be the super parents our little boy deserves. Even hours away their love still surrounds us and we are one lucky little family for that. I hope every mom out there can be Super Mom with capes sewn by their very own Lands, because our super kids are more than worth it.
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