Motherhood: Survival Of The Fittest

Sometimes it feels like motherhood is a messed up game of survival of the fittest. Only motherhood makes you spread yourself so thin you could read a book through you, and yet feel like you’re still not good enough. Only motherhood can make you feel insane 50% of the time and like you have a sixth sense the rest of the time. Yes, it is filled with joy, happiness, laughter, and tears, but sometimes I’m convinced it’s being filmed for a survival show because nothing else makes sense.

I was recently talking to someone about getting a part-time job because I randomly start feeling like I need to help provide for my family because being a stay-at-home mom can sometimes feel like I’m not doing enough. They looked at me funny and replied, “Would you even have time for one?” So I started thinking, then I started laughing. No, unless I stopped sleeping or never saw my husband, there isn’t a way for me to make a job work.  Between homeschool lessons, speech for two kiddos twice a week, reading tutoring for one kiddo twice a week, occupational therapy for one once a week, therapy for one once a week, guitar lessons once a week, dance once a week, plus the doctor and specialist appointments, orthodontist appointments, and teaching a couple classes at our homeschool co-op, and then my household chores, when would I have time to work?

It was a good reminder that I may not get paid, but I am essential to our family.

Sometimes I feel spread so thin that it’s exhausting and yet, if I am asked to volunteer to do something, make something, or add one more thing to my to-do list, I always say yes. What can I say; I’m a people-pleaser, but sometimes I fill my plate so full that it runs over and it is nearly impossible to complete everything I committed to do. I need to find a happy medium between people-pleasing and killing myself by taking on too much. I apparently need to learn this lesson pretty quickly because with my autoimmune issues, I find myself becoming exhausted more easily and having to limit myself with what I can allow myself to do. This is something I am still having a hard time with; as a people-pleaser, I just want to say yes to everything and deal with the aftermath.

When you’re being pulled in fifty different directions, how do you determine what to do? Well, you have to decide on what is most important. I have had to start doing this recently. I know what my week looks like with appointments, school lessons, and commitments, so I have to decide what my body (and brain) can handle for that week before I decide what else I can take on.

This is where motherhood starts looking like a survival game show. I see what I already have committed to for the week or month, and I have to try to squeeze in everything I can in without overextending myself and making myself useless by the end of it all. So sometimes I have to say the dreaded word “no” and that’s ok.

When motherhood becomes a game of survival of the fittest, you have to do what you have to do to make sure you survive the day with a little bit of sanity intact.