Okay cute Mama! I see you there trying to balance all the things! Trying to nurture your children, trying to keep your house decently clean and striving to feed the humans in your home nourishing foods. Let’s not forget trying to look your best, or at least presentable….ok maybe just not dead! 🙂
Or perhaps you are trying to balance a demanding career with equally demanding children! This is not for the faint of heart to constantly choose which fire to put out next!
Then, in the midst of all this, you scroll through social media for just a few minutes to unwind, and you see a mom who has all her children perfectly dressed and smiling for the camera. So cute! Then you see another mom has created a show stopper of a dinner for her family. Will her children actually eat Kale? Ugh, she’s amazing! And you see another friend volunteering in India surrounded by colorful images of adventure and she genuinely looks more fit than ever. Of course she is.
You close your app and start to warm up the left overs you are feeding everyone for dinner tonight. There is nothing worth taking a picture here. There is nothing you want to put on display for everyone else to examine. You feel steeped in the plain and ordinary. You wonder how everyone else is knocking it out of the park when you are BARELY able to maintain the status of slightly exhausted.
Perhaps you have forgotten that it has only been 3 weeks since you posted attending your favorite concert and how everyone fawned over your good luck. Plus that fun trip to the zoo with your toddler who was so close to the giraffe! That was such a great picture. Those moments are fantastic, fun memories, but they are not the norm of the every day.
It turns out a lot of life is just common everyday work!
A lot of life is creating and then cleaning up messes! (This is when you notice the baby spit up on your shirt. Yep Awesome.)
I once heard a comedian describe himself at the grocery store. He has his cart full of groceries and approaches the check out line holding an item and asks the cashier, “Is this enough toilet paper to cover all these groceries?” Yep, creating and cleaning up messes!
There is a lot of rushing around to get kids, spouse or self to places and appointments on time; only to accept more assignments, work and opportunities to volunteer. Then to return home and find that there are more dishes in the sink and laundry to be done and beds unmade. Plus why do they assign creative school projects to second graders?!? Whose idea was that one?
There will always be more to do. We will only sometimes be “winning” with all our ducks in a row! Quick take a picture! 😉 That is actually the funny, quirky, tear jerking beauty of life. There is value in the ups and the downs and we will experience plenty of both.
Something happens along the way in all of the hustle and work. The more I lost myself in the nurturing of my family, the more I began to learn patience and become more compassionate. Not overnight, but gradually (and I’m still learning)! The less time I spent on my hair or self and spent it on helping my second grader with his project, the more I helped my children develop confidence. This patience, compassion and confidence cannot easily be captured in a picture to show the world on social media and yet the value is remarkable and truly worthy of celebration.
Don’t get me wrong–Please carve out some time to do your hair and take care of yourself. Self care is important! However there is a balance isn’t there? It is amazing as my own propensity for selfishness was chipped away and invested in the developing of a family culture, the more I developed other soft skills I didn’t know I had been lacking. (Besides ponytails are timeless.) 😉
Cute mom, if you spent time nurturing a child today, then you are doing all of us a favor. You are building the love and confidence of a human being who will add value to this world! We need you and your well loved kiddos!
You are amazing!
You are amazing in your own way and that is enough. (We don’t need you to be anybody else!)
Let’s not get caught up in comparison that is so generously dished out to us on our social media feeds. Maybe tomorrow will be the day you create a show stopper of a meal and maybe not!
As a voice teacher, nearly 50% of my effort goes into cheering on my students. Why? Because they are often held prisoner by their own fear of failure. What if they sing to the best of their ability and they still are not good enough? What if they never sound like that singer on the radio or that Broadway star? Stuck in their fear and indecision they actually sound worse!
What they are beginning to learn is if they set aside those fears, or those thoughts of comparison and just take a deep breath and sing, we will find their beauty! And that is all kinds of wonderful! Improving our voice takes work. It’s a lot like life. There will be plenty of moments of ordinary, but with work, and letting go of fear: beauty begins to grow and develop.
So I continue to cheer. I cheer on my students and right now I cheer on you.
Don’t hold yourself back. Don’t compare yourself to her or to him we simply don’t need another one of them.
We need YOU and what you have to offer!
Maybe take a break from social media for a while, or stop following people who don’t lift you up!
Because in the end, you bringing your best self to your family, your kids, and your community is the best gift we could all hope for. Sing with your voice, it really is beautiful!
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