MOMMY GUILT

     MOMS! I just want to say you are amazing. You are incredible. You are perfect. Just the way you are. I recently engaged in a Facebook conversation that I wish I hadn't. Isn't it really hard to just read posts and not put your two cents worth in? But sometimes you just have to speak up! Ya know? Anyway, that "conversation" is what inspired this post.
     I'd like to address the guilt and pressure mothers sometimes feel. Does any of this sound familiar to you?

* I should exercise. Look at my body! I'm a flabby mess and I feel like complete shit because my body never gets to move - aside from picking up toys off the floor and vacuuming.
* Why do I just want to run away? I wish I'd never had kids, life was so much EASIER before I became a mom!
* I should stop eating so much fast food and chocolate! No wonder I'm so fat and the kids teeth are rotting out of their skulls!
* Why do I yell so much at the kids? I am an awful mom - I am ruining my children.
and on, and on, and on.
* I should just put the kids in daycare and get a job - then maybe our family wouldn't be in such a financial mess. Oh, but then I will feel guilty for having someone else raise my kids! Oh, but just escaping from this insanity for a few hours each day would be so nice, and I'd get paid!
* The last thing on my mind right now is sex! How can he expect me to want to touch anyone else when I've had kids clinging to me all day. Oh, but our marriage is a disaster and maybe that would help - but dear god I just want to sleep!
* I'm going insane!

     If there is one thing I've discovered after having two kids is that life becomes more about survival than anything else, especially in the early years. Things you used to take for granted - oh like being able to go for a walk whenever you want, or peeing in privacy - suddenly seem like complete luxuries once you have a kid. You are placed in a pressure tank and the only thing you can do is take it moment by moment. The key word for surviving motherhood is "surrender." I say that with utmost sincerity and emphasis - surrender to everything. Surrender your idea of what life is supposed to be like, or what it once was. Surrender your notion of what a marriage should be and embrace what it is. Give yourself a break. Don't beat yourself up for every imperfection - your imperfect body, your imperfect kids, your imperfect diet, your imperfect pregnancy, your imperfect birth. LIFE ISN'T PERFECT. It wasn't before you had kids, it sure as hell isn't going to get any more idyllic now that you have them. Instead, celebrate those fleeting and precious moments of bliss you do experience. Savour them like the tastiest chocolate bar you "shouldn't" have. They are the treasures of motherhood and what will give you hope when all you feel is overwhelmed, despair, and are knee deep in dirty diapers and complete and utter chaos.

     I am now in what feels like the other side. The kids are in school for at least part of the week and our family is on the rebound in so many ways. The past year or so I've felt ready to focus more on me and do the things I always wished I could do when the wee ones were home all the time. I go for walks at least 3 times a week. I do yoga every other day. I am re-establishing my career. I have time to knit. It all comes back to you again, I promise. Things will never be the same as they were before I had kids. I wouldn't want them to. I always wanted a family - and even though my vision of what that would be like was totally idyllic, unrealistic and a romanticized version of the reality - I love my kids and am glad I have them. I just felt like I had to reach out to all the mommas out there and just say I understand what you are going through. Try not to be so hard on yourself. Don't let anyone make you feel like you aren't doing enough, or that you aren't working out enough, or you're not trying hard enough. You are enough. You are doing a great job. You are woman. You are mother. You are everything.

     I am sharing this image of the Indian Goddess Kali. She is a powerful symbol for mothers - I encourage you to embody her strength and energy.

"Kali is a particularly appropriate image for conveying the idea of the world as the play of the gods. The spontaneous, effortless, dizzying creativity of the divine reflex is conveyed in her wild appearance. Insofar as kali is identified with the phenomenal world, she presents a picture of that world that underlies its ephemeral and unpredictable nature. In her mad dancing, disheveled hair, and eerie howl there is made present the hint of a world reeling, careening out of control. The world is created and destroyed in Kali's wild dancing, and the truth of redemption lies in woman's awareness that she is invited to take part in that dance, to yield to the frenzied beat of the Mother's dance of life and death." (From http://www.exoticindiaart.com/kali.htm)