The Struggle

I believe every mother faces the struggle of whether or not she is a good mom at some point in her life. We tend to beat ourselves up about it, or at least I do. Everything I learned as a mother with Drew, all went out the window when Emma was born. I really feel like I have been a “freshman” at motherhood, two different times since their needs were so different. I am continuing to grow my guidance for Emma and have many more years to do so, Lord willing.

However, lately I’ve been asking myself:

-Have I spent enough time with my children?

-Have I read enough to my children?

-Have I made my children feel secure and loved?

-Have a done enough to raise my children in their Christian walk?

-Did I discipline appropriately or did I yell too much?

-What should I have done differently?

I am afraid I can not answer a definite yes to all of these because I just don’t know. I am human. All I can do is make more of an effort from this moment forward, and pray I have enough time to be able to answer a definite YES before Drew leaves for college.

Let’s face it…times are different. Everything is always moving fast forward at light speed it seems. The world never takes the time to stop. In a lot of families, both parents work these days. If you are one of the few who do not, then you are extremely blessed! I am dealing with the pull of being a working mom. Yes, I work 24 hours a week compared to full time 40 hours, but my life is a little different in that most days after school, I am running Emma to speech or tutoring instead of going home for the afternoon. I have always worked since having kids, but at the preschool I was at for 9 years, I could bring the kids with me if they were out of school that day. Not anymore and finding childcare has become almost impossible, especially when you are asking for someone to watch a child with special needs (silly, but true). Therefore, I start to question my priorities. I want to be able to take my kids to school everyday and pick them up. I want to be the room mother and attend all the field trips. I want to spend as much time with them as possible. It breaks my heart to miss anything because that is time I can not get back. It is such a struggle to find the right balance with everything life throws at us. I hope I am doing enough. I am their one and only mother. I hope they both know how loved they are and that I would do anything for them. I hope they understand that when I can’t be at every single thing, it isn’t because I don’t want to be…it is because of life’s circumstances that I can’t be.

With doubt comes redirection and refocus. I enjoy taking a step back from time to time and see what needs to be done differently. For my family, my short term goals are:

-more family time (all 4 of us)

-more one on one time with Drew (so much of his life has had to be about his sister)

-father/daughter dates for Jon and Emma

-devotions (family and parent devotions)

-small family trips

-lots of prayer!

-as much involvement as possible with both of their schools

-more quality time talking and playing

In my opinion nothing else will matter 10 years from now. Not how much money we made
(well, I guess that does help somewhat :), what we had for dinner that night or how clean my house was….the quality time I spent with my children will be what matters most to me and hopefully to them. Yes, I still have to keep up with all the daily chores and errands and work, but the world won’t crumble if they all aren’t accomplished in one day (although my pride might). This is something I have to remind myself of daily.

I plan to hold myself accountable. This week has been a good one so far. I have cooked every night, Jon and I took Drew out one night to spend time with him, I stopped in the middle of laundry to kick a soccer ball around with Drew simply because he invited me to. Sometimes it’s just the small things that matter the most. I pray these “struggles” I have will become “achievements” one day and I will be able to say I gave it my all and did my best. Just another example of why humans aren’t perfect…

What are some of your struggles?