I saw the sweetest Instagram video this week. A mother handed her four-year-old son her phone and asked him to record her performing a dance, but she had intentionally flipped the camera so that it was actually capturing her son’s face. The way the boy looked at his mom — so full of love, wonder, joy, happiness —
It was life-affirming.
In the photo above, you can see how my son sees my husband — his precious look of awe and trust!
How do my children see me?
I think about this and immediately diagnose the areas that need improvement. Specifically: I wish I spent less time at my desk and more time saying “yes” to them. “Not right now” shouldn’t be the default, and it often is. Sometimes I feel frustrated by the fact that I write in my home; if I were in an office, they wouldn’t have this version of me, the one balancing work with them in high-res realtime. But working from home also means we have more fractional opportunities to connect (fractionality! a theme of this year), and makes my life on the whole easier and more comfortable. Plus, there is the benefit of having them know I am nearby — something that reassured me growing up in a house with a stay-at-home mom.
I give myself better marks on emotional availability. My guess is that when they think of me, they think of me comforting them — at least I hope it’s that and not “mom saying ‘not right now.'” I think I do a good job of listening to them, and holding them, and comforting them. I know I am their soft landing.
But how do I give more of myself to them right now? Is it possible for me to say “yes” to them more often? I am thinking of a conversation I had a few months ago with a mother whose older children are involved in Serious Sports (i.e., travel leagues), and I asked how she managed it. I wondered (to myself, not aloud) whether she ever missed a slow Saturday of rest; whether she ever felt more exhausted after a weekend than before; whether it was worth it? She replied, gently, “I had to learn how to be unselfish with my weekends.” Today, I wonder: am I being selfish with my time? It’s a complicated question and complicated answer.
I am a working woman. I am fulfilled by my writing. And I am a mother. Together, it is a math problem that will never resolve. This past year, we let go of our afternoon caregiver and started to handle carpool and afterschool hours ourselves. It has been a gift. I love to hear them chattering in my backseat, bringing news from their worlds to me. I find myself at my calmest in those moments of reunion, and I feel comfortably maternal helping them out of their uniforms, unpacking their lunchboxes, preparing their snacks at home. And still I feel that it is not enough. Meanwhile, my margins are thinner than ever. When they are home sick for a week, or out of school because of snow, I find it difficult to catch up afterward. I find myself ceding weekend afternoons and occasional nighttimes to my desk, or dropping things. I can’t get it all done. Maybe this is OK. Maybe the right things fall when we shake the trees hard enough, you know? I’m holding all of this fruit but some of it is unfit, or unnecessary, and I need a heavy wind to shake the right ones free.
I was thinking of this last weekend when, on Sunday, I realized I had about two hours of work, wanted to exercise, had errands to do, had laundry to fold, and my daughter was begging me to take her outside to ride her bike. There were not enough hours in the day to get it all done. What was the most important thing? The answer was obvious: Going outside with my daughter. So we did that. And then I went inside and worked at my desk. And the laundry, the exercise, the errands just had to wait. This, of course, is the perennial logisticizing that motherhood requires of us. (When am I not shuffling through a full hand of cards, trying to determine which ones to play, in which order?)
Friends, I have no insights here. No clever ways out. No helpful aphorisms. I am just in it. I think as long as we are constantly asking the question, “What’s the most important thing?” and reaching for grace, we’re doing OK.
Onward!
*****
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THIS. I’ve been coming up short in all areas of my life this month thanks to snow days and illness and orthodontist appointments and and and…and am having to regularly remind myself that I started my own business and reduced our childcare specifically so I could be available and present for my kids. No solutions here either…just another mom trying to figure out how to be a human in the slivers of time left over!
I feel you SO deeply. We are in the exact same straits. When you wrote “orthodontist appointments” I had a strong visceral reaction — it can sometimes feel like even these little, routine check-ups / appointments eat up SO MUCH of my time. I put off going to the dentist for like a full month (switched the appointment twice!) because it just felt like I could not spare the time! Oy! With you, Erin!!
xx