Our Mommyhood

Posts Tagged ‘parenting challenges’

By Sarah, Contributor, The Stroller Ballet (@strollerballet)

I find it particularly difficult to eat out with Peanut. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. The “terrible twos” are nicknamed such for a reason. And I’m never totally sure when she’ll blow. Or over what. Pre-motherhood, I imagined myself as that woman who would take her toddler everywhere. Oh, how times have changed. Now I’d prefer to hide in the bedroom with a blanket covering my head, pan of brownies on the bedside table. Anyway, I guess the cat’s out the the bag. Sometimes, I lack control. I think the best of us do (I hope the best of us do).

Recently, we attempted lunch. “Attempt” being the operative word. In retrospect, there were warning signs. It had been a long morning. With lots of stimulation, including a trip to the Central Park Zoo. She hadn’t really rested (save for a quick 20 minute nap on the subway). But we had the magic tablet (ipad) complete with full length “Thomas the Tank Engine” movie. And it was an incredible, beautiful, spring day in New York City. I thought it just might be ok.

It wasn’t. At all.

First, she wanted the ice from my husband’s glass of water. Actually, she wanted to pick up the ice with a fork and attempt to eat it. Logical, perhaps, to a two year old. Not nearly appropriate (or tidy), though. From there, things went progressively downhill. To the point where I became “that” mother in the corner of “X” Cafe, frantically attempting to wrangle a shoe-less toddler. I felt my cheeks burn in embarrassment as we quickly exited. I’d never been openly glared at in a restaurant. Until then, of course.

We walked home, quietly. Peanut was dirty, angry and foul. Frustrated and discouraged, I wondered who this child was and where she had come from. “Let’s cut through the playground,” my husband suggested. He took Peanut out of the stroller, placing her on the ground. And as she watched the children play, around her, the unthinkable happened.

Her mood improved. She smiled. She laughed.

We exited the park, and I was struck with the realization that this afternoon was so transient. “Do you realized we’ll tell her about today, one day, when she’s all grown up?” I asked my husband.

Indeed, we won’t forget. Because we are parents.

It isn’t always pretty.

But even these moments are part of our experience.

By JJ Keith, Staff Writer, JJust Kidding (@jj_keith)

Last week I swabbed the floors, hid the laundry, put out a bowl of fruit and hosted a play date at my house for other mothers of two kids two and under. One of the moms grew up abroad and has ample family and household help. She took one look at me anxiously bouncing my infant in a Bjorn, pulling the garden hose out of my toddler’s mouth and tripping over cat mewing to be fed and said, “American women work too hard; you need a maid.”

When I had one child I felt prideful about the ferocity with which I did it all. When my first napped I busted my ass to clean the house, then write a blog post, polish an article for submission, return calls and emails, put some veggies in the crock pot for dinner and lay out the materials to do an art project with my daughter when she awoke. I was a multitasking hero. I didn’t need help. Nannies are for sissies. Plus my husband is a loving and dedicated father who also contributes mightily to keeping this household running. Maybe, I wondered, nannies are for families with absentee fathers.

Now that I have two babies, mom clichés like, “There just aren’t enough hours in the day” or “There isn’t enough of me to go around” are starting to sound like scripture. At this point I would unironically embroider “Too much to do, Too little time” on a throw pillow if, ironically, I had the time.

In my last post I presented my friend’s parable about the rich mom who was stressed with managing her household staff and children’s scheduled edutainment and the poor mom who just let it all roll, cooler than the cucumbers de-puffing the rich mom’s eyes on spa days. These days I’m poor AND stressed. The parable doesn’t hold up for moms with more than one kid it seems.

I was valedictorian of my high school, a National Merit Scholar and had a B.A. before I was legally allowed to buy alcohol. I spent my adolescence so tightly wound that I had nightmares of B+’s, but I have never been more stressed than I have been in the last few months. On top of taking care of my kids and my home, I need to come up with some freelancing income to help keep our household afloat. Now I know: writing, editing and managing submissions on top of the demands of being a stay-at-home mom two kids two and under is much harder than being an ace student.

After nearly losing my mind while cooking an apple crisp, responding to emails, bouncing my wailing baby, while calling the pediatrician I had a moment of clarity. I remembered that once I became a twenty-year-old with a B.A. I was just another schmo who needed a job. No one cared how many grades I skipped. And so now as a stay-at-home mom who freelances part-time without childcare or any familial or household help I had to look at myself and wonder: what am I trying to prove?

That lady was right. I do work too hard. I need to make my life livable and my goals attainable. The first step was going through our budget to see what we could give up in order to afford some cleaning help once every two weeks. I’ve also been on the lookout for a young and inexpensive mother’s helper to entertain my toddler (while I’m home and keeping an eye on things) for a few hours a week. I beg you to share any other suggestions you might have.

No one ever said that being a mom was easy, but no one ever said it would be this hard either. Late at night, after the kids are asleep, the dishwasher is whirring, the laundry is folded and the cat box is scooped I fantasize about everything I’ll get done one I get these kids in school all day. I could rule the world.

By Mommie V, Staff Writer, My Little Slice of Mommie Heaven (@mommieV1)

This has been a tough winter. I live in an area that has dodged most of the winter snowfall, but it’s still been cold, gray and miserable. On top of that, it seems like everyone has The Sick. It came to our house, too.

So far as a mom, I’ve managed to avoid severe illness. I did have some hormone-induced migraines while I was still living with my parents after my daughter was born. My mom knew it was bad when she came into my room where I was holding my head and trying to sleep. When she asked, “Do you think you need to go to the hospital?” and all I could manage was, “Maybe, what if I’m having a stroke?”

A good neck massage – and weaning – helped those headaches.

Since then I haven’t been horribly sick. I get the sniffles a lot and try to go to bed early this time of year to help my defenses against whatever my girl brings home. I wash my hands and don’t drink after her and try to get us both through.

So it was inevitable that I would come down with a major sickness.

I woke up one Friday feeling nauseous. Nothing that a cold Coke couldn’t fix, right? Oh, maybe I’ll lay down on the couch for a minute. As it got worse, I tried to decide what to do.

My mom had planned a day trip to a winery with a couple of her friends. I knew if I called and asked for her help, it would disrupt her plans. I didn’t feel all that bad, and I thought I could handle the situation at least until she got back in the afternoon.

It was just after she was out of range of turning back when things got worse. My kid was in the living room watching Dora and I was laying on the couch trying not to move. I had made her some oatmeal, opened a yogurt and a banana hoping she wouldn’t ask for much else for at least 20 minutes. I was trying to breathe through my mouth, but it was inevitable. I made it to the bathroom just in time to throw up in the toilet. And it kept coming. I didn’t even think about closing the door, so when a tiny little girl toddled up to the bathroom to see what mommy was doing, she screamed in horror.

So here I am, throwing up so hard I can’t stop to talk to her, and she’s in the living room crying and screaming for me.

Finally I’m able to drag myself out of the bathroom, and now I have a traumatized toddler to comfort. I try to hug her and she wants nothing of it; she is still just standing and crying. The germophobe in my is dying to wash my hands and gargle with mouthwash, and the mother in me is ripped apart for scaring her so badly.

The rest of the morning was more of the same. I managed to put a slice of cheese between two pieces of bread and plop them on her little table before having to lay back down on the couch. She took one bite, and I had no energy to coax her to eat. She went down for her nap easily, thankfully, and I crawled into my own bed to sleep.

After her nap, it was even worse. I couldn’t even get out of my bed, or I’d shake from the chills, get dizzy and almost throw up again. So I let her do all the no-nos. I let her play with my deodorant, I let her pull all the tissues out of a brand-new box and I let her play with my phone. Anything to keep her from destroying the rest of the house and let me lay in bed. I was counting hours until my mom called to tell me she was back.

Finally, the phone rang. I roused myself enough to throw some diapers in a bag for when she arrived. I took some anti-nausea medication, crawled back into bed and basically slept until the next morning.

Mikki Morrisette recommends in her book that Choice Moms have a support system in place. In fact, she moved back to Minnesota to be closer to her family and natural support system. If you’re not close to your family, you may have to work harder to develop your support system, but they may be less crazy than your real family, too. However you develop your support group, you will need them.

I am very bad about asking for help; I always try to do everything myself and usually end up failing at something. But when you are sick, you are physically incapable of doing everything – sometimes anything – yourself.  It took me being sick to remind me that it’s OK to ask for help. And to be very, very grateful that my mother is so close.

By JJ Keith, Staff Writer, JJust Kidding (@jj_keith)

Early on in my stint as a mother, a friend presented the following parable: she knew one mom who swam Scrooge McDuck-like through a vault of cash, rolled with a “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” kind of crowd and had a staff of nannies and housekeepers at her disposal. She also knew a mom who was already struggling when she found out her husband had been laid off and she was pregnant… with twins. Guess who was less stressed out? Yup. Turns out money can’t buy you relaxation, no matter what the Burke Williams people want you to believe.

So I know that moms with more money don’t necessarily have it better than moms who have to dig beneath couch cushions to find two dimes to rub together. I’ve been all over Los Angeles sitting in on mommy groups over the last two years and I’ve seen plenty of moms of enviable means struggling to get through the day. Some have unhelpful, unsupportive or absent partners. Some use the time freed by household help to stress about their stretched out bodies and slackening jaw lines. Some are pressed with familial or career expectations that leave them thinking that drinking stiff mojitos at a noon play date on a Thursday is a totally normal and healthy thing to do.

Turns out you can’t really win as a mom. For every bit that working moms long to be with their kids more, stay-at-home moms are desperate to get away. Household help leaves moms feeling more like they’re running a small business than a family, but having no help leaves a backbreaking and historically unprecedented workload. (Much as office workers don’t do less now that computers have streamlined their tasks, washing machines don’t really make a dent in a stay-at-home parent’s responsibilities.) Having extended family intensely involved leads to conflicts and tension, but to have no extended family is isolating and also historically unprecedented.

It may seem obvious that the solution is moderation is all departments, but that’s just not how life works. Far away family can’t relieve parents once a month for a date night just because you desperately need the time out of the house. Worse, part-time jobs are scarce and affordable childcare arrangements even scarcer. And not everyone can spare the cash for help. Parents are not masters of their destinies; we’re all working within boundaries.

It’s a struggle for me to not be earning an income, but if I go back to work I would need to pull my daughter out of the ten hour a week preschool she attends because we can’t cover her tuition plus infant care for the new baby. The most cost effective option in Los Angeles is a nanny to look after my two kids two and under. My salary wouldn’t clear much over the cost of the nanny, and it would be highly detrimental to my daughter to leave preschool. Plus, I just don’t love the idea of going back to work and being away from my kids.

The problem is: I’m a stay-at-home mom to two kids two and under with no familial or household help and I’m losing my ever-loving mind. Los Angeles is expensive, but is where nearly all jobs in my husband’s industry are located. We live in a 700-square-foot cottage in a rough section of Hollywood and we’re barely making the proverbial ends meet, but both my husband and I are working twelve or more hours per day to keep the house tidy, the kids happy, the bills paid and healthy home cooked food on the table. My husband works all day, comes home and relieves me of child-minding so I can cook dinner. Then we eat, put the kids to bed and I go off to write (my only hope of bringing in an income without needing to pay for childcare) while he deep cleans the bathroom or puts away the laundry that I folded during my lone quiet moment during the day. It is intense. We are exhausted, fragile and so desperate for time that we fight over who got to take the longer shower.

So what are we going to do? Stay tuned for part two, but in the meantime I’d love to hear from you. Do you do everything yourself or do you get some help around the house?

By Julia Magnusson, Staff Writer, It’s Not Like a Cat (@notlikeacat)

It seems that every time I start to do something, my preschooler asks me to play with him.

“Mommy, will you play with me? Come play now,” Max insists.

“Just a minute,” I tell him. “I have to change Ben’s diaper.” Or wash bottles. Or put Ben down for a nap. Or put the groceries away. Or start dinner. There’s always something, it seems, that I have to do.

Unfortunately, I feel like I spend the whole day telling my older son to wait. “I’ll be right there.”

Some days, just as I’m finally ready to focus on him and play, the neighbor’s girl—my mother’s helper—arrives to occupy Max while I tidy up and prepare dinner. She’s very helpful, but sometimes I hate it. I would prefer to pay someone to tidy up and make dinner so I can play with my son.

Weekends can be similar: I do most of the cooking while my husband plays with the kids. He doesn’t get to play with them much during the week because he’s at work.

But I don’t seem to get to play with them much during the week, either. I have to all the houseworky stuff—grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, endless picking up of toys—that a stay-at-home parent does, plus tending the baby and doing some freelance work. It’s not all fun and crafts and trips to parks and museums, though it should be.

I try to simplify, in terms of cooking and diapers and such. I had more time to focus on Max when he was the only child, and I miss that. Having a second child really changed our lives and our daily time together and now I almost have to schedule special one-on-one time with my older son.

I am also learning to just say, “OK!” and let whatever I have to do wait, even if it is a diaper change for the baby (hey, if it’s not poopy and not leaking, what’s the rush?). I try to make sure we do special outings, but it’s the days we stay home that I most tend to put him off.

To be honest, maybe sometimes I just don’t like playing Legos or racing Matchbox cars. Or maybe I’m just not good at what feels like idle time. But I know that these minutes add up fast. Just a minute ago he was a newborn; a minute later he was crawling. In another minute he was riding a bike and learning to make snowballs. I know that in just a minute he will be starting school and probably a minute or so after that he’ll be off to college.

He won’t always want me to sit on the floor with him, bulldozing brightly-colored pompoms. Dinner, dishes, and laundry can wait just a minute.

For right this very minute, it is time to play with my son.