10 Things Moms Need to Remind Themselves Every Day

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These days I think mom’s feel like they have to be perfect.  Like they have to do everything and be everything to everyone. That’s an unrealistic expectation. It’s okay to not do everything, to say no, to buy your child’s birthday cake instead of making one from scratch, to cater your kids birthday party because you just don’t want to cook, and to use a salad kit instead of making a homemade salad.  My son’s preschool graduation is coming up and we have to bring a salad for a potluck that night. I find cooking, baking, and creating recipes therapeutic, so I will probably make a homemade salad. Some people don’t find this therapeutic. They find it stressful. It’s okay to use a salad kit or bring a store bought salad. We shouldn’t have to worry about what other people think of us for bringing something store bought.  We shouldn’t have to worry about what other people think of us, period. This is my list of 10 things moms should remind themselves every day.

Mom life can be hard.  Whether you are a stay at home mom, a mom working part time or a mom working full time.  Each scenario has its own challenges. To keep your sanity, remind yourself, every day, of the following 10 things. I know it’s long, but bear with me. It will be worth the read.

1. God has given you unique talents

The other day at work I had a coworker, who is an amazing person, wife and mother, say to me, “I love your blog.  I don’t know how you do it all. You meal plan, you have a blog, and you just ran a 5K. I only have 2 kids and can’t get it all done.”  First of all, I don’t want her to discredit the things she does for her family just because she sees the things I do and thinks she should be doing them.  Secondly, she has so many amazing talents and I know is a far more patient mom than I am. God has given us each unique talents.

I love to cook and bake, so naturally, I am going to do more of that than someone who sees it as a chore. I love working on my blog.  It doesn’t seem like a chore to me, and so I work on that versus sitting and watching TV, reading a good book, or working out. Although, I should do more reading and working out. (See, I just made it sound like I wasn’t doing enough.  This is exactly what I am talking about. We have these insane expectations for ourselves. I need to not feel guilty for not working out as much as I feel I should or for not reading more).

By the way, I did no training for that 5K and my goal was to run the whole way.  I ran the whole way, but I am pretty sure that a speed walker would have passed me. I was exhausted at the end and was incredibly sore for 5 days.

2. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others

This kind of goes with the first one, but we all need to stop comparing ourselves to other moms. (Easier said than done, I know). We are all unique people, have our own personalities, and have had life experiences that have helped shape us into the people we are today.  I feel like people think I have things all figured out, but I don’t. I have some things figured out, but I have them figured out for my family. Your family is different and what I do may not work for your family. I also have piles of dirty laundry that are waiting to be done, stacks of papers waiting to be filed, and I am not sure I can tell you how long it’s been since I cleaned my shower.  Yeah, I know, it’s gross. Don’t judge.

I think social media has made comparing ourselves so much more in your face.  Think about it, moms are not going to post the bad things in their life on social media. They are not going to post a video of them yelling at their kids or of them fighting with their husband.  They are not going to post pictures of their filthy shower, piles of laundry, stacks of dirty dishes, dust bunnies everywhere, or the 3 baskets of clean clothes sitting on the dining room table that need to be folded and put away.

Social media is like a filter and all you see is the happy, beautiful, wonderful times. Don’t be fooled. Most, or all, of those people yell at their kids from time to time, fight with their husbands, have clothes that aren’t put away and dishes that aren’t done.  I read a joke not too long ago about this mom that was going shopping for a dining room table. She asks the salesman at the furniture store, “How many loads does it hold?” The salesman says, “Ma’am, it’s a dining room table, not a washing machine.” The mom replies, “I know.” Ha! This is totally me.

3.  Your kids should do chores

Running a household is hard work, but it should not be a one person job.  My philosophy is that my kids live in this house and eat the good food I make, so they will contribute to this family by doing chores. My kids have chores they need to complete every day.  They do not get paid for these chore, but they can get paid for doing extra chores from their jar of job opportunities. This jar has popsicle sticks in it that have different chores written on them.  If they chose to do these chores they can earn the money specified for each chore.

It is important for them to learn the value of money and how they need to earn money if they want to buy things. I want to teach my kids how the world works. All I really want is to raise good, loving, people who are happy, successful and contribute positively to society.  Is that too much to ask?

4. It’s okay to take care of yourself

Mom guilt is real and I think we all feel it.  Stop feeling guilty for taking care of yourself!  You can not take care of your family if you don’t take care of yourself first.  I have a lot of moms as patients at my hospital that feel guilty for being in the hospital and not at home.  I always give them the scenario of being on an airplane and having the oxygen masks pop down because something has gone wrong with the plane.  The flight attendant always tells you to put your oxygen mask on first, then your child’s. As moms, our first instinct is to protect and help our children first.  You have to put the oxygen on yourself first, otherwise you won’t be able to help your child and you’ll both be dead.

5. You need to have girl’s night out or a girl’s weekend

I have been blessed with so many awesome women in my life.  Some of them I see on a weekly basis, some of them once a month and some of them I see once or twice a year, but I know they have my back.  I know if something happens to me, my husband or my kids, they will be there. I know that I can call them up any time I need then and they will listen, even if it is just me venting about my husband and my kids.

It’s so important to have a girl’s night out once a month or every other month. It’s so good for you to just be you for a couple hours. Not a mom, not a wife, just you. Although, I usually end up talking about my kids and my husband all night. Isn’t that ironic?

Last year, for my birthday, my mom, sister-in-law, sister and I went on a girl’s weekend.  Not sure everyone was as excited as me about it, but they went along with it because it was my birthday and that’s what I wanted.  We had a great time. We did an escape room, ate great food, drank some wine, and played Mahjong. (It’s not just an old lady game. No offense mom.  It is actually really fun).

Earlier, I talked about God given, unique, talents. This isn’t quite what I was talking about, but it’s definitely a unique talent I have.  I am awesome at the claw game. Seriously, I win every time I play it. Usually on the first try. On our girls weekend, I was three for three. Check out the cute stuffed animals I got for my kids.  My kids were thrilled and all three of stuffed animals only cost me a total of $1.50.

6. Laugh at yourself

Life is funny.  Kids are funny. Laughter is the best medicine for anything that ails you.  We have a saying in our house. Whenever chaos ensues, which is basically every day, my husband and I look at eat other and say sarcastically, “isn’t this magical?”  You have to laugh at the chaos, otherwise you will drive yourself crazy.

I have to share a story about chaos with you.  A long time ago, back in 1985, my mom and her sister drove across the country with 6 kids, all 11 and under.  I was 2, my brother was 5 and my sister was 8. My cousins were 5, 7, and 11.

With 6 kids, you can’t please every kid at one restaurant, so my mom drove through at 2 different places.  Guess what? Someone still complained that they didn’t like their food. My 5 year old brother and 5 year old cousin, both boys, would watch cars go by, and my cousin would say, “there’s a Chevy” or “that’s a Ford.”  My brother started crying because he was upset that my cousin could read and he couldn’t. In reality, my cousin couldn’t read either, he had memorized the logos for each make of car. While my brother was crying in the back, my 11 year old cousin starts throwing up because she used to get car sick.  Simultaneously, I had diarrhea coming out of my diaper and it was running down my leg, which then caused all the other kids to start gagging. My mom says it was definitely a trip to remember.

My mom and aunt finally got to their destination. They got checked into the hotel and got everyone to bed. At 4:45am the fire alarm goes off in the hotel.  Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. I know they were not laughing at the situation then, but now my mom and my aunt can’t get through telling that story without laughing.

7. When People Offer to Help, Let Them

I am terrible at this. I have gotten better as I have had more children. Seriously, though, if someone offers to help you, let them.  We all need help sometimes. I truly believe it takes a village to raise a child. I will say, I have a pretty awesome village.

8. Be kind to yourself

Again, not one that I am that good at.  I beat myself up sometimes, but I need to be kind to myself.  Nothing can ever be perfect, in fact, imperfections are what make things beautiful and unique. I make mistakes a lot as a mom.  I apologize to my kids a lot. But after I have asked my kid nicely to pick up their coat and boots for the 9th time, the 10th time is not so nice.  I lose it and I yell. It’s interesting though, kids give unconditional love and forgiveness without even thinking about it. I need to be more like them.

9. Be kind to each other

I have to give a shout out here to my son’s preschool teacher. She is the director of the preschool and she goes to our church.  She is such a kind person. One day I walked into preschool to drop my son off and I clearly looked exasperated, (because my son took 30 minutes to get his shoes on, another 15 minutes to get buckled into his seat, and had four tantrums in that time because I wouldn’t let him take his 4 lego sets to school, so we were late), she says to me, “You are doing great mom.”

This amazing preschool teacher is always building me up. She is always checking on me. One Sunday in church my 6 year old was acting up so I took her out. I put her in time out and she kept throwing a fit. This teacher saw it and just said, “You okay? Do you need my help?” I need to be more like her. If I see a mom anywhere struggling with a kid throwing a tantrum, I need to say, “You are doing a great job mom” or “You got this mama”.  Let’s support each other all the time. This world needs a whole lot more of that.

10. God made you their mom for a reason

I believe, with every part of me, that God chose me to be the mom to these specific souls.  Before I got pregnant with our oldest I had a miscarriage. This was really hard for me. I had always wanted to be a mom.  My husband and I had tried to get pregnant for over a year. When we finally got pregnant, God took that baby away.  There was a lot of sadness and a lot of questions about why.

I can look back on the miscarriage now and have a reason why. For one, it definitely made me stronger.  Secondly, it made me understand more about grief, which helps me relate better to my patients at work. Lastly, I now know that I was supposed to be the mom to my three specific children.  If I had had that first baby, I would not have the children that I have today. I cannot imagine my life without my three hoodlums, uh, I mean beautiful children. God knew that I would be the best mom for them.