Late last night, I decided to watch
Bad Moms. My neighbor had mentioned it to me, so I decided to watch it after the kids went to bed. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, here's a little description I snagged from IMDB since I'll be referencing the movie in my post.
Amy has a seemingly perfect life - a great, marriage, over-achieving kids, a beautiful home and a career. However, she's overworked, over-committed and exhausted to the point that she's about to snap. Fed up, she joins forces with two other over-stressed moms on a quest to liberate themselves from conventional responsibilities - going on a wild, un-mom-like binge of long overdue freedom, fun and self-indulgence - putting them on a collision course with PTA Queen Bee Gwendolyn and her clique of devoted perfect moms.
If you're a mom, hell, even if you're a dad ... no, especially if you're a dad, you should see this movie! For some of you dads, this might help you figure out what your wives are going through.
I was amused, relieved and saddened to share so many similarities with these women. As a mom of four kids between the ages of 3 and 12, I try and try and try to do the best that I can for them. I shuttle them to activities including baseball, bowling, swimming lessons, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, band, chorus, among other things that I can't think of right now.
Not to mention the many school meetings with teachers, the doctors appointments (because I have 4 kids and during the school year there's at least one kid sick every week!), plus picking them up and dropping them off at school every day.
And then every night of the week there is homework and dinner to prepare and whatever activity is going on and then before you know it there's the hour and a half long process of rounding up the children to get them to brush their teeth and get ready for bed. And on top of all that, I read bedtime stories to the little ones each night, too. Oh, yeah, and I'm a full-time writer and I do volunteer work, too! Besides, shuttling my kids to their meetings, I have Committee Meetings of my own to attend.
I'm seriously exhausted just writing all that. But, I've been exhausted since the day I came home from the hospital with my eldest son 12 years ago. Between the sleepless nights and busy days at work, I barely manage to keep my wits about me. I've never had much support from my husband. I won't get into all the reasons and neglect I've suffered from him, but let's just say that I could totally relate to Kiki's character in the movie. Out of all of the moms, she is the most similar to me. It was a normal thing for me to say to my friends that I was a married single mom.
Now, I can officially say, I'm a single mom with four kids. Frankly, I was tired of calling my husband my fifth child, the one who wouldn't listen to me.
But, Amy's character struck a chord with me. I'm constantly running late to everything, mostly because one of my kids can't find their shoes. My daughter insists on wearing clothes that don't match to school and hates brushing her hair. My oldest son suddenly thinks he's Mister Fix-It and decides to drill holes and nail things together in the house. My other son steals my chocolate, even when I hide it! And my youngest son freaks out if I don't have Boss Baby or Harry Potter on the television at some point everyday.
It's a fight every day to get them to brush their teeth. My kids can also go from being the best of friends during playtime to mortal enemies out for blood within seconds. My house is either filled with the screaming of laughter or the shrieking of someone pulling someone else's hair... or worse yet, because one of them
looked at another one.
Yes, there are days that I sit in my soccer mom minivan and cry in the school parking lot. I think I must be the worst mom ever because even for as much as I do for my children, I still can't do everything. I'm just one person. One person, on my own, without any family support. There are so many days, when I just can't understand how I can keep going.
And, yet, I do. Because I have to. I don't have the option of walking away. I don't have the option of quitting being a mom. But, even if I did have that option of quitting, would I do that? How could I? Could I ever just walk away from my kids?
Nope.
I love my kids more than my own life. They are my heart and soul. I never understood what love truly was until I had my first baby. My grandmother used to say that there is nothing like the love between a mother and her child. I discovered on the day he was born that my grandmother was absolutely right. And for each baby after that, my love continued to grow. My heart expanded to include each one of my precious darlings. There is really nothing else like it.
So, even if I can't do everything for my kids, even if I don't have the money to buy them every thing their little hearts desire, like the newest Playstation system or Barbie doll house, I'll keep doing what I can do for them. Making them smile. Making them laugh. Loving them. Giving them hugs and kissing their boo-boos when they stumble and fall. Wiping away their tears. Teaching them to become good people and make good decisions. Life is tough and it's okay to get knocked down every once in a while, but then you dust yourself off and pick yourself back up. And despite all the things that can go wrong in life, it's important to keep chasing after your dreams.
Am I a Bad Mom?
Maybe. Some days. I'm certainly not a Perfect Mom. Yeah, I see those moms at the PTA fundraisers and Scout meetings who have the perfect husbands, the perfect house and their perfect kids, but I suspect it's not really like that. It's a picture that they present to the world. Gwendolyn seemed perfect, too, until she revealed what her life was really like in the end. For a lot of moms, we strive for perfection and when we realize that we can't achieve it, well, then we just fake it. We keep pretending so that other moms don't discover what a fake we've become. An imposter. Because despite it all, we can't be a Perfect Mom.
There's no such thing.
We're Moms.
That's it.
Just Moms. Doing the best that we can do for our kids and keeping our fingers crossed and hoping that one day we'll get it right and everything will work out and our children will become decent human beings that become brilliant scientists who fix global warming, or doctors that find the cure for cancer, or politicians that bring about world peace.
Oh, wait... Is that just me?
