I feel lucky today. Fortunate. Grateful. I have a healthy, happy family and we live in a beautiful forest. I drink my morning tea on a sun filled porch listening to the birds and the sounds of the river. My husband goes off to work in wine country and he is very talented. I get to spend time with my kids when I am in the mood, and I get to read, write or go to the gym whenever I want to. I have it better than many. Who am I to ever complain about being unsatisfied?My husband and I worked hard to get to where we are. I assume we look successful from the outside. But society values productiveness and wealth and I don’t have either. Like everyone in the middle class right now we are always cutting corners and trying to make ends meet. Being able to pay bills on time is still a testament to our creativity and simple life style rather than financial success. And I am not productive by society’s standards. At the end of a week what do I have to show for myself? Two kids, still alive. Two kids bathed a few times, clean teeth when I was lucky enough to remember to insist on it, maybe a loaf of zucchini bread baked and eaten, transportation to one soccer practice checked off the calendar. Two finished books on my nightstand. And maybe one blog post written. Does this mean I am successful? Can I take pride in the daily mundane tasks of “raising” children? Can I feel a sense of pride and self-esteem from the list above? Am I a valuable member of society? This tight rope I walk is really confusing. I start the day peaceful, feeling gratitude while drinking my tea, and end the day wondering what the hell I did with it?! And when day after day occurs the same way I start to feel like I am wasting something (my youth?) or missing out on something (a life filled with grown-up conversations?). That I live in some fake reality of play-doh, bike riding, and Nick Jr. television. Isn’t this the American dream? To have two kids, two cars, a cute yellow house with a white fence (I have the yellow house but the fence is made of chicken wire to keep the deer from eating my husband’s garden). Haven’t IMADEit? The disappointing truth is that I am a human being and I will always want more than I have. In my experience, happiness is an illusion. All we can work towards is moments of comfortable contentment in between being washed away by frustration, anger, sadness, envy and all the other human emotions we can never escape from. I want to be proud of my place in life right now. I want to take satisfaction in being an emotionally present mom who has a strong sense of self of separate from my family’s needs, but if my life continues in this vein for the next 10 years, at the end of it will I feel like I did something valuable with my life? Asking that question scares me. Talking with my girlfriends who lead similar lives reveals something interesting to me. We all seem surprised by where we ended up. We grew up knowing we could have any career we wanted, that gender was no barrier. We knew it was supposedly “our choice” to become mothers or remain childless. We assumed we would work or choose to stay home with the kids as we saw fit, but that it would ultimately be a choice. And then somehow, we ended up as SAHMs and we all feel crazy! All of my girlfriends and I have tried various combinations of full time work and full time mommying. All of the options were uncomfortable and all of the options were stressful financially. Child care costs a fortune, and having a home with two parents who work full time and fight over chores is exhausting. Staying at home with the kids is boring and isolating and financially stressful. And losing years of “productive work experience” can destroy our careers. I don’t feel like every opportunity was open to me–I felt trapped. I don’t feel like an empowered 21st century woman, I feel like having children closed a lot of doors for me. And today, 50 years after the women’s liberation movement, I still feel this is an issue for feminists. Let me add however, we should include stay at home dads (gay and straight) that suffer these same conundrums, and invite them to our dialogue. However, it does make me uncomfortable that SAHDs are still the minority, and it is mostly women’s careers that suffer after child bearing years. My French mother-in-law told me that in France the mother is revered above all else and it is enough “to be a mother”. I am a mother, and I do not feel it is enough. I wonder who, if anyone, in our American society would tell me differently? Is it enough to be a mother? In order to find some comfort in all of this, and to make it possible to wake up tomorrow and wash the dishes all over again, this is what I tell myself: what I am feeling is temporary. My kids are still very young. They need me 24/7…but that won’t last. In fact, every month they need me a little bit less. And the more independence they earn, the more independence I get back. Change is the one constant. I struggle to remember that everything is temporary. Human emotion is strong and it sweeps us away in its intensity and it feels as if it will never end. But all things end. I will not feel trapped forever. I will not be stuck between wanting to provide for my kids and to have my own life for long. They will grow-and grow quickly-and I will have other obstacles to face. So, let us remind one another more often,This Is Temporary. And if you’ve had a particularly rough day, and want to throw someone out the window, let me remind you–tomorrow, or next week, or next month, you are going to have a really good day and you are going to wake up feeling lucky. ...read more