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| Enjoying the company of my amazing 16-year-old daughter at a camp retreat recently. The richness of our relationship now outweighs everything I missed when she was little and I was working mom. |
Looking around at the women I know with mountains of to-do's for Thanksgiving day, I wonder that a day intended for enjoyment could become so exhausting. Are we overcompensating?
Being a working mother creates many challenges, but I think the number one issue is guilt. I missed my baby's first words, first steps, and all those things that make motherhood so wonderful, because I had to work. It still bothers me, even though I was blessed enough to retire early to enjoy their teenage years with full force, volunteering at the school, going on field trips, and being there to facilitate lots of get-togethers and outings with friends. In the early years, however, because I was away at work every day, I found myself overextended, over-scheduled, and exhausted from trying to be supermom. Yet, after all the elaborate birthday parties, late nights making cookies, and hours spent on the bleachers, while project deadlines loomed over me, I still felt like my life was an equation:
IF I=workingmom, THEN, I < MOTHER
After dropping off my children every day, I carried this feeling with me to the office. Starting on a note of inadequacy and guilt, I was primed for victimization by a workplace fraught with duplicity, dominated by a boss with a make-more-bricks-but-gather-your-own-straw management style (with a little extra demeaning dose of meanness here and there, just to add her personal touch). The result: working hours and hours off the clock to meet objectives, while staying up later still to make sure the laundry was done, dinner was made then cleaned up, teacher meetings were handled...it was beyond exhausting to my mind, body and spirit.
Sounds like the perfect storm for major self esteem deflation, right? That's where I was headed, until I had an epiphany one day. What was I trying to prove? To whom was I trying to prove myself? Can I trust God with my soul, but not with my security and happiness?
It occurred to me that this sense of dissatisfaction with myself, which drove me to overachieve, was misplaced, misdirected, and misunderstood. I needed to live my life more on purpose, without letting the mean girl in my head determine my worth. I have always been my worst critic, and realizing that the criticism was unrealistic was a daily struggle. I had to learn to shut it out--it was not healthy or helpful.
Instead of pushing yourself beyond your limits to compensate for mistakes, failures and shortcomings, try something else today. Look around you and see what you HAVE done right, what you HAVE done well...realize the joy and satisfaction that you HAVE given your children, even though you're stuck punching a clock, away from them.
Both of mine are almost grown, and we have a closeness that grew from the love and gratitude for my efforts, not from the perfection I tried to achieve. They weren't disappointed by lopsided cupcakes, missed field trips, missing socks, or forgotten dentist appointments. They weren't nearly as hard on me as I was on myself. I could have saved myself a lot of stress and tears if I had known then what I know now.
Be the best mom and wife that you can, enjoying your moments together, and skipping all the deprecation for those so-called failures that no one else notices. Love them and be thankful for the time you have, and carry that joy with you to work. Instead of being a working mom, be a mom that's working. Your identity and worth are tied up in things far more valuable and important than your job--don't let the job saddle you with so many regrets that you can't enjoy being who you are. To your kids, this equation is more accurate:
Mom's love and attention > problems, disappointments, failures, griefs, frustrations
But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.
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