Picture below is my version of having it all: on that day.
You can’t have it all; especially at one time.
The person who told women they could have it all; they lied. Yup, they lied and we fell for it. After years of expecting nothing we did a 360-degree turn and we wanted it all.
I mean let’s face it; men don’t get it all. Men have been missing out on precious childhood moments for years; but nobody bats an eye when Daddy isn’t there for Emma Jane’s very first step or first bite of solid food.
The fact of the matter is that no one can have it all and the sooner you accept that the happier you will be and what about this thought: Maybe it’s because of what we DON’T get that we appreciate what we DO get.
A woman wrote a blog recently about regretting staying home with her kids because of all the things she missed out on. I wonder how she imagined that she might not have to pay a price. That her world might not narrow, that her job skills might not start to diminish, that she might not have to do things like clean the kitchen and cook the casseroles.
Consequences to your choices; a basic skill we teach our kids but we seem to be so surprised when we are asked to ante-up ourselves.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you are wrong if you work or right if you stay home. I’m not saying you won’t have as many memories as I do or that mine are better.
I AM saying that my choice was to spend as much time with my children as I could and that I feel blessed to be able to have been a part of the minutia that make up a day, both mundane and miraculous.
But let’s be clear, I have paid for my choices.
I have never owned a new car or a career. My resume when I decide to put it together at the still young age of forty-five-ish will be so pathetic that I might as well have cut and pasted it together with a glue stick and preschool scissors.
I have never had more then two hundred dollars in my account for more than ten days. I still sometimes refer to myself in the third person and when I do, my name is Mommy.
A vacation for me is how far my car can get without breaking down and how long I can last on about thirty bucks.
I have cared way too much at one time or another about how to do long division; if I would be judged for the gummy fruits I put in my kid’s lunchbox; how many field trips I should sign up for and how many days it has been since I talked to my college- age kid.
But, the older my kids get, the less they need me and so my priorities have started to change.
I go on dates with my husband; I run, regularly; I write now, a lot and I got a job where my greatest skill doesn’t involve how many plates of Beef Wellington I can balance.
So while I can’t have it all at one time, I see no reason why I can’t have it all in one lifetime, that is of course if anyone is looking to hire an over educated under experienced loving mother of two boys who may be a tad bit past her prime.
About Rebecca Suder