You CAN Have It All — But What If You Don’t Want It?
The constant “I’m not doing enough” mentality of the modern mom really is a drag.
Speaking to all modern-day mothers — millennial moms in particular — who are struggling with the concept of being expected to wear two very contrasting — dare I say contradictory hats — 24/7, this post is for you.
From career success to beautiful homes to personal fulfillment, is “having it all” really the goal? Maybe the better question is: Is having it all worth the headache?
The Busy Brag
We still think being “busy” equates to being productive and successful. We feel like we have to take our kids to the museum, the library, the apple picking farm and the movies before the sun sets in order to fulfill their childhood dreams.
In the midst of grocery store trips, doctor appointments, laundry folding and picking up toys, we’re also answering emails, taking phone calls and setting up meetings — all the while having nap schedules and upcoming play dates in the back of our minds.
Running ourselves ragged trying to be super mom and super business woman isn’t fun. So why do we do it?
We fall into the trap of keeping up with the Joneses, mostly without even realizing it. We all joke about it like it’s something to joke about, but do we even know what it means? I’ll enlighten you.
“Keeping up with the Joneses is an idiom in many parts of the English-speaking world referring to the comparison to one’s neighbor as a benchmark for social class or the accumulation of material goods. To fail to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ is perceived as demonstrating socio-economic or cultural inferiority.”
Being busy isn’t something to brag about. Being busy isn’t only nonsensical— it’s unhealthy at worst and unfulfilling at best.
How Do Moms “Do It All?”
Unless you have nannies, cooks and house managers, no mom is physically capable of “doing it all” in the realm of domestic duties, work responsibilities, care-taking commitments and relationship landscaping. Not happily, anyway.
Interviews you read in magazines and view on the Today Show depicting “successful moms who have it all and do it all” are scripted. Those moms being interviewed are celebrities who have been gently groomed to say specific things in order to appear as impeccably polished versions of themselves as not to confuse their fans and viewers with them being represented as “regular” people.
Celebrities have teams of people dedicated to just their hair color, let alone their children’s wellbeing and school schedules.
If you’re looking for an “everyday mom” who “does it all,” she also has teams of people helping her out — they are her partner, her own mom, her child’s babysitter and her friends.
Having It All Careering
Being on top of our game career wise while raising children is clearly possible. We are capable of achieving career milestones the same way any woman — mom or not — can achieve.
However, challenges are presented to mothers that are obviously not present with working women who don’t have to worry about getting their offspring to daycare by 8 am every day so they don’t hit rush hour traffic. These are the same women using their vacation days to stay at home with their sick baby and “dipping out” on meetings to meet their husband at the hospital due to an unfortunate injury of her kid occurring on the school playground.
My point is, we know how exhausting it is to present a pitch to a new client the morning after our toddler has been throwing up on us, yet we chalk it up as “just the way it is.”
I don’t think it’s the way it is. I think impossible pressure is placed upon all of us to succeed professionally to the point our health, along with our relationships and credibility suffers. All to show our superiors, our peers and ourselves that we can and we will have it all.
Having It All Momming
Conversely, being on top of our mom game is attainable as well. We quickly catch on to what our child needs and wants from us, and it really boils down to one, simple thing that makes them happy:
They want us to spend quality time with them — free of answering work calls, texts and emails when we are with them.
While everyone’s situation is different, the clashing of our careers and our home lives is inevitable. We can be fully focused at work the same way we can be fully focused at home, but the other is somehow always in the back of our minds, making it impossible to live in the here and now.
And that same pressure to succeed we feel at work lingers in the walls of our homes, commanding us to dress our kids the way their classmates dress and buy them things Instagram product junkies swear you need for your children to be intelligent, well-rounded humans.
Winning At Our Careers = Next Level Mom Guilt
We’ve all felt mom guilt, and it’s usually most powerful when we’re choosing to do something for our own happiness or success, like saying yes to a promotion or accepting an opportunity we’ve been wanting for years.
Equally as messed up as it is accurate, this is the continuously frustrating feeling we try and cope with daily. It’s minor things, too. Like using our day off to get our hair colored instead of taking our kids to the park. Or reluctantly allowing them to watch TV while we rush to make a deadline for our boss.
Rarely is there a feeling of “I deserve this.” Instead, it’s more an innate inclination of, “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
Notwithstanding, enjoying our days off playing with our kids can make us feel like we’re slacking in our jobs. Thanks to social media and email, we are ALWAYS connected to our work, meaning we always have access to our co-workers and clients, meaning we are expected to respond ASAP, no matter what day, or what time of day those “urgent” phone calls come.
We can’t be in two places at once. So why are we killing ourselves to make it happen?
Being super mom and super business woman is an endless cycle of depletion that drives modern day mothers into a slow demise of madness, leaving close friends and family members to ignorantly question, “What’s wrong with her?”
Not only is this roundabout lifestyle unrealistic, it’s impossible.
Is the damaging of our mental health and feelings of inadequacy worth being labeled “a wildly successful entrepreneur, author, speaker and mother of two?”
How do we fix it? Listen to your needs before anyone else’s.
Say no to that charity event you know is going to burn you out. Say yes to people offering to help you with office tasks and chores at home.
Pay attention to yourself first, before paying attention to anything else. What is your body telling you? Are the bags under your eyes a sign of not taking care of yourself, or are they a badge of honor for “powering through?”
We have mom guilt because it isn’t doable to please ourselves, our kids, our spouses, our bosses, our co-workers, our friends, our neighbors and our in-laws simultaneously.
Yet, we’re expected to. We’re expected to seeing that the media praises single mothers of septuplets who run three businesses during the week and spends Sundays volunteering at local orphanages.
Covers of magazines with parents in business suits holding a briefcase in one hand and a toddler in another shrugging their shoulders as if to say, “This is life!” are intended to motivate stay-at-home moms to get back into the workforce and prompt business savvy moms to take up sewing on Tuesdays.
Nobody wins.
Books, magazines, “reality” television shows and broadcast interviews are so far from the truth in the realm of motherhood and “successful living” that it only makes sense we feel like shit after seeing them.
We Forget Our Lives Are OUR Lives
I’ve been asking myself this question a lot lately: If I could have life my way, what would I be doing?
And then it hit me. I can be doing that. So why aren’t I?
That answer usually boils down to one of two things (or both) for most people — fear and finances. Fear to start over again, fear of failing again, fear of trying something new, and fear of what other people are going to think. And then the obvious and most-applied excuse, money.
It’s when parenthood and career cross paths — and it’s impossible for them not to — that puts us in incomparable positions where we are forced to choose between our work and our kids, and it seems to be a lose-lose situation no matter the circumstance.
Being a mom is hard, and we’re all making it harder by beating ourselves up for things we can’t control as well as things that just are not obtainable.
We’re being set up to snap.
Conclusion
The stress of being a young mom with demanding responsibilities inside and outside of the home is enough to make any woman crack. This is why Friday night wine night with friends is the highlight of our week.
We are human. We aren’t machines. We get tired, run down and moody about things we can’t control. So when prominent businesses and public figures portray moms as happy-go-lucky housewives laughing at the dog dragging its muddy paws on the clean kitchen floor, it’s irritating. Because in real life, we wouldn’t laugh.
The Message I Want To Send is Twofold
We, moms of the modern day, put way too much pressure on ourselves to “have it all” when it just isn’t possible. Put more bluntly, it isn’t enjoyable. So the next time your boss asks you to work overtime like it’s no big deal, say no. It is a big deal.
Secondly, if you’re feeling the pressure to “have it all!” but deep down you know you don’t give a damn about being a fancy business executive, don’t be one. Be who you want to be and don’t apologize for it or try and justify it to someone who doesn’t understand.
Because sometimes some of us just want to play with our kids in the grass and drink sangria for the entire summer. And sometimes some of us want to bury ourselves in work because we shine brightest when we’re doing something that makes us feel like we are corporate queens of the world.
Both are more than okay.
The media continues to miss the mark on who the modern day mom is, and it’s a real shame. Because there are a lot of us out there who could lend our fellow stressed out moms a helping hand by solely showing them what we look like physically, how we really feel mentally, and why we do actually need time away from it all.
Thanks for reading!
