Ever feel like you’re drowning in motherhood? It doesn’t have to be this way.
There is a scene in the final season of the Bear that has stuck with me.
Sugar is sharing with Tina how her daughter wakes her daughter up to say goodbye in the morning and asleep when she gets home at night. She’s worried that if the restaurant fails, she’ll have wasted so much time. And maybe it’s a sign that she needs to leave.
And Tina’s response is ‘It’s always going to be painful. That’s the truth…your daughter doesn’t care that you were ambitious. She just wants to look at your face. But if that face is always sad…because you’re not doing the thing that you love…what baby is going to want to look at that face.
Tina’s point is that you’re the best parent when you’re doing something just for you. If that means there are times that you’re focused on work, (or something that’s important to you) that’s ok. Not because you want to model to your kids what an ambitious mom looks like.
But because your kids get to see a mom who’s doing something for herself. Not sacrificing herself for the sake of her family. But being a person, in her own right.
I share this because moms are so conditioned to sacrifice themselves and their dreams for their families. Dad’s aren’t. It’s a double standard. Dad’s get praised for working hard, mom’s get shamed. Really, moms get shamed for doing anything that isn’t in service to their family. And even then, we’re probably doing it wrong, according to society!
I’m here to tell you that, no matter what choice we make, we’re going to wonder if it’s the right one.
And I don’t share this to make you more overwhelmed and frustrated.
I share it because I wonder if there’s a freedom in this. What if, instead of worrying about whether the choices we’re making are the right ones, we decide that it’s the right one for now. The schools we pick for our kids, the sports or activities they play, how much we’re working. None of it is set in stone.
So, let’s make a choice based on what makes sense for us, right now. In this season. And go from there.
Because it’s all hard. But that doesn’t mean you have to feel like you’re drowning.