The problem is that I suffer from a lack of imagination. While women are rising through the ranks of government, I can’t stop wondering whether growing out my bangs was really such a great idea. While some women believe they can make eggs looks like festive little packages, I consider whether mopping the floor really matters when you have four kids and half the neighborhood running through the kitchen. While yet others open schools for underprivileged children (spending forty million dollars in the process), I decide to let sleeping teens lie at least a little longer before forcing them to confront math and their arch-nemesis, composition.
I have low standards. I wasn’t always this way, but I have sunk to this level after time and kids have eroded the walls surrounding my long-nourished perfectionism. Now, the flood-waters of mediocrity have seeped in and I have flung myself into the murky soup in complete resignation. Face it, I’m not raising the singing Von Trapp family or managing an obedient houseful of seventeen children like Michelle Duggar. I’m just flailing around, trying to stay afloat.
A greater imagination would elevate me above my current cluttered surroundings and into the realm of accomplishment. Remember that saying you probably encountered in high school: “If you can believe it, you can achieve it”? Do you believe that? I don’t. But then again, I suffer from a lack of imagination and even worse, a healthy case of pessimism.
I really did think I’d be a better mother than I am. (I believed it . . . did I achieve it? See how that saying breaks down under scrutiny?) Now, midway through the years of having children at home, I wonder if I’ve squandered the teenagers’ childhoods. Did I do all I could do? Do they have enough happy memories to sustain them through the rigors of adulthood? Is the foundation of their childhood strong enough to support the rest of their lives? When you have a 13-year old, are you supposed to be able to peer into their eyes and see a successful adult lurking somewhere in the shadows of their futures or do all mothers despair of their kids ever voluntarily wearing deodorant and putting their shoes away?
These thoughts brought to you by a mean headache gripping my forehead, jarring my brain and reminding me what happens when I run out of Diet Coke with Lime.
Updated: What do you know? Someone knocked at the door, just after lunchtime, and it wasn’t a neighborhood boy. It was a friend who brought me a 12-pack of Diet Coke with Lime. What a delightful surprise! Thanks, friend.
Actual Unretouched Photo 
go get diet coke now!! you crazy woman, you’re messing with serious stuff here!
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I”m with beth — yes, we all have those thoughts, NEVER about the egg-decorating thing, but our children, our lives. Usually brought on by PMS, occasionally by lack of Diet Coke. You NEED a Diet Coke — with or without lime. How close is the nearest convenience store? Can the teenagers ride their bikes to it?
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I think just the fact that you care enough about your children to worry about these things means that you are doing a good job. I am amazed at the amount of parents who could really care less.
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I ALWAYS have a diet Dr. Pepper every evening. And I joke that it is either my wine or my whiskey, depending on how my day went! I can’t imagine what would happen to my hormones without my diet Dr.!!!
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Hope you have got the diet Coke by now. Just haul out the photos of the past 13 years. Look at the smiles. You have done enough!
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I swear you’re going to have me busting a gut here with laughter. It’s like my girlfriend with 6 kids told me; “I used to pray that my kids would be pastors and misionaries and do great things for people and God and now that they’re teenagers I’ll be happy if God just keeps them out of jail!
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Ooh the compare and contrast game – not much good unless it’s a school assignment is it? Thank God for friends bearing DC with Lime – almost manna from heaven.
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I look at my older ones and feel sad that I wasn’t a better mother to them when they were little. I look at my toddlers and thing they are certainly getting the better mom out all the older ones taught me.
Stop comparing yourself to other moms. You really don’t know what their private moments are like. (altho if you wish to feel better, compare yourself to the drug addicted moms giving birth to sickly babies…helps you feel a bit better..heh..)
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I’m RIGHT there with you! For what it’s worth, my teenagers DO voluntarily wear deodorant now. Maybe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Sad little light to hang my hopes on, but still….
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I used to have higher standards as well, but after awhile, one realizes that some things are just more important than others, and no one really cares anyway.
As your kids get older and they start reminiscing about things that happened when they were little, things they did, just little traditions, etc., you’ll find that you did a great job with them. My kids remember things fondly that I have completely forgotten, so obviously those little things mean a lot to the kids as they are growing up. You’re doing fine.
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We’re very different in some respects, you and I, but we do share the same dreams for our kids.
If we can raise our children to be decent citizens, we’ve done our job well.
I hope your kids and mine will remember the love.
That being said, I watched the entire opening of the House of Representatives, much with tears in my eyes, thinking “why did it take so long”.
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Hi. I am sure you are a great mother! I am a teacher at a school where many of the children live in poverty and have parents who don’t even get up to get 5-year-olds ready for school and who throw a fit if they have to come pick up a sick child. I see children who wear the same dirty clothes all week and wear clothes either several sizes too small or several sizes too big. It’s really, really sad.
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I’m just hoping my four-year-old (also a daughter) will voluntarily quit wetting her pants. From where I sit, I think you’re doing a great job.
Laura
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I always feel like the “old timer” when I comment here, because so much of what I say is in retrospection with both of my kids now adults of 28 and 30. BUT! I had to add my two cents here and say that, from where I stand now on the Cusp of Life…what really, REALLY matters is if they’re happy.
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De-lurking to say, I’ve been feeling the same way, and my daughter is only 4! But in only 9 months she will start full-day kindergarten…have I squandered these precious beginning years out of sheer exhaustion or lack of creativity? Even now she doesn’t talk much about her time at preschool…next year will I be losing nearly the whole day to the mysteries of kindergarten and “I don’t want to talk about it, Mama”? (and then on the the next question SHE wants to ask ME).
But Mel, in your case, if you have half the neighborhood kids voluntarily hanging out at your house, you must be doing something right. Kids don’t congregate where they’re not welcomed and loved.
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How funny… check this post at my blog ( http://purplescrapbooks.blogspot.com/2007/01/evidence-found.html ) and you will see how crazy and naive I was. The note was written 10 years ago (my oldest just turned 7). Let’s just say that I was wrong… so very wrong. I still crave absolute obedience but rarely get it. I’ve learned to settle for pretty-close, most-of-the-time obedience. And general mediocrity in all manners housewife/mom.
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MOST kids do eventually start wearing deoderant and some even start to shower WITH soap! We’ve actually had to start sniffing our kids getting out of the shower to make sure they used soap and shampoo! LOL We’ve even had a nurse call me one time over a kid who stunk, you know soccer without deoderant, and she said HER daughter went through that too and it drove her nuts being the school nurse and she couldn’t get her daughter to bathe, lol.
My oldest is 17 now and showers all the time, wears not only deoderant, but also smelly sprays and colognes! That he buys for himself even!
Yes, its girls that bring that on. I’m hoping my 14yo will get some interest in hygeine soon.
Hang in there, mediocre is good, perfection is too stressful for everyone.
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hey – just found your blog and I’m on the floor. I’m the queen of just surviving. How can we not be? Me, the “church glue”, the pastor’s wife … and raising kids … and keeping the pastor together behind the scenes … and I work full time … and still home-school one of the kids … and you want my kitchen floor to be clean? A LONGGGGG time ago a friend said, “you mop the kitchen when your zories stick to it” gave me the freedom to give up the “Martha complex”. So go, girl – I love your honesty, and look forward to reading more!
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