How do Super Mum's live anyway?
Every morning at around 3.30am I wake up embracing the day, though it's still dark outside and the birds haven't started their morning song as of yet.
Drink a relishing tasty health tonic and escape into the shower.
Don my sport clothes for a 5km jog, travel another 2km power walk, add a 30 minute course of cardio aerobic exercise finishing with a dessert topping of a 4 lap swim.
Shaking my wet hair into a 'naturally dried, I don't need to do another thing to my hair because it's already awesome as it is'. Slip easily into my size 8, superlicious jeans, cup my boobs into a 10B bra and top that off with a stylish, 'you look yummy mummy hot' top.
With enthusiasm and gusto, make every one's lunches, pre-prepare tonight's gourmet dinner, unload and reload faithful dishwasher, clean an already clean looking house, lay out children's daily clothes, make son's power shake, hang out the laundry, pre-program the next load of washing, feed the pets, sit down with a cuppa to answer personal emails, answer online comments, finish social media strategy plan by the last drop of tea and head to work for morning start of 6.30 am.
SLAP!
Sorry about that, I was dreaming again.
Is life really that simple to traverse, yet we seem to think that other mums do.....the idealistic super-mum. The mums that seem to sail through life effortlessly, with beautiful well mannered children, vogue styled home, and an impressive income of her own. She has the Midas touch, everything is easy.
Last week, a friend asked me to watch a web-video on a 'Mogul Mum" who seemed to have it all, she is by all accounts on the surface a super-mum. Watching this well known personality speak about her success, I noticed her body language, her shoulders were hunched a little and her eyes, well, a little less than smiley.This is a woman with some personal troubles or just plain tired, but the talk was there, the hype was there, smacking of "Look at me, look at me, I am so successful". Oh really.
The last time I spoke at a parenting conference I was introduced as an inspirational super-mum, which took me back a little. Liking the compliment anyway, but I am as ordinary as the mum next door.
In reality, I wake up at around 3.30am with a groan. I'd love to meet 7am, I hear its a really good time.
Turn the light on, gasp at the state of the kitchen, make a cup of tea and turn the computer on.
Read emails. Lament at the still dark exterior......
Basically everything else above is the same minus the enthusiasm & gusto, the over achieving exercise routine, the size 8 body, preferred boob size, the hair and clothes thing too, but as soon as there is light, I do go for a 3km power walk and ho hum the joggers that zoom past me each morning. I wouldn't dare jog out of fear that my hefty cleavage will give me a set of black eyes. I'm still not trim.
Today's society expects all mothers to be superhuman, super trim and super good looking and super talented, super committed and super financially independent. No excuses.
Women everywhere are trying so hard to meet these standards and they are secretly killing themselves emotionally & physically to meet the demands.
I think about the generation of women that came before me, like my mum.
My mum's generation were the stay at home wives. Girls who worked in their youth to be typists, secretaries, check out chicks till they married and had kids.
The conversations that mum & her friends used have on their regular get togethers; the lounge room would be filled with ladies puffing away on their cigarettes, drinking their coffee and chatting about how stressful their lives were.
Guaranteed each mum in that lounge room spoke about their daily dose of Valium or diazepam (something that sounded like that), who's husband was having an affair, gossiping about who didn't clean their windows last week, what type of roast to make, the latest in knitting techniques and had anyone tried the latest craze, macrame yet.
No one spoke about their gym routine, because gyms didn't exist then.
It intrigued me as to why all of these women were on Valium or similar in the first place. Valium is a calmative, sedative, that was often prescribed to help the then modern mum through the day without breakdown.
Were children so hard to raise in those days?
The only hardship I can possibly think off for my mother was that I asked more questions than she could ever possible answer, but basically we were all kicked outside to have our own adventures till dinner time. It was great.
Fast forward to the now generation of mums, life is far more complex and convoluted, the demands so much higher, all striving to reach the super human everything, and we are doing it without the aid of Valium.
Conversations now centre around who has found the latest apps, their careers, latest business technology, cloud computing, dropbox, latest google find, FB updates, diet & exercise regime, websites, new retail stores and cafes, best new parties, music and sometimes if you listen very carefully or look at the body language, there is a little subtle hint of "I'm drowning in competition here".
Majority of mums work, so career paths are critical to reach supermum status rather than just jobs. One dear friend returned to work once her children started school as a 'check out chick' at a local supermarket, rather than her previous corporate role. "I love my job really, it's the school hours so I'm free to be mum to my boys, I dont have to worry about after school care. I leave without taking work home with me, it's ideal in every way but I'm embarrassed to mention what I do in the company of other women that have executive positions, because they look down their noses at me as if I'm not important".
In reality, women in front line roles such as retail & customer service are far more important to us on a daily level than one woman at CEO level of a major corporation that we would not normally affiliate with. Just imagine if there was no one working in the supermarkets, or no supermarkets at all, we'd be back to growing all of our own veges (which is fun), slaughtering our own chickens & cattle (which isn't fun) ourselves or standing in long, long queues.
Many mums have also become business owners. The new breed of mumpreneurs, have the added stress of single handedly building the entire infrastructure of their company from the ground up, continually pursuing business education. Elements outside the initial product or service, such as employees, marketing, social media expertise, presentations, meetings, sourcing, business & retail relationships; the list is endless.
Yet every week the benchmark lifts a little higher and the mumpreneur has to work yet harder.
Last week someone mentioned I wasn't on Pinterest. "Huh?"
No matter what society expects from us, as mother's we are still in charge of doing the same motherly duties of looking after our children and partners as our predecessor did plus a whole lot more.
Take the outside work mum, who has to get the kids up and ready, the partner too sometimes, so that
she can get to work on time. I have watched mums struggle into the day care centre in our home street, holding a tearful baby in one arm whilst dragging a defiant, cantankerous toddler in the other, come back out brushing a tear a way or wait till they get in the car and thump their head on the steering wheel, taking deep breaths. Their stressful day started a while ago and they haven't even arrived at work yet.
As our children reach primary school age, there's the struggle to get them to school on time, only to have the little darlings say at the school gate "Mum did you get my bag?"
Not to mention the plethora of after school activities, when mum becomes the taxi service, circumnavigating afternoon traffic across a couple of suburbs if she has more than one child or maybe a few to cart around.
Juggle the taxi service in between the second most important meal of the day, which is also the most time consuming and complex meal to make - the evening dinner. Add a few rounds of homework supervision (or battle standoffs), the bath time, the kitchen cleaning, folding the laundry, the bedtime routine (or war), it's not surprising to find many an overwhelmed mum not yet out of their work clothes at 9pm, trying to make it all fit in.
Mums seem to push themselves at the expectation to perform at a top knot rate endlessly throughout their day & night in all areas, to prove 'I am woman, hear me roar! I am woman, I am invincible" as Helen Redding sang the song that inspired women to change their lives from that day forward.
In hindsight someone should have put gaffer tap over her mouth!!
Something has got to give? but what?
Aside from the the secret wishful thinking of a few hours of 'free me time', as mothers, we wouldn't trade our children for anything.
Weekends are lost on the catch up of domestic chores, leaving most working mums without the option of critical battery recharging that the kids and non helpful partners enjoy the abundance of.
We're supposed to do it with a smile to!
As we battle the 'must have clean nest' syndrome internally, we endeavour to make our lives easier; we look, we search, we share tips, ideas, suggestions. As women we do that well, we also set the benchmark, the standards, we compete, we show off, because that's what women do. We are our own most significant 'frenemy'.
A friends daughter will be turning 10 at the end of this month, so she was scouring the bowels of google, blogs, websites and Pinterest for fab ideas and came away completely disheartened, somewhat depressed, if not impressed with her finds.
Looking on one blog site, her eyes feasted, her creative juices flowed and her heart sank
"Is this the new standard for little girls parties" she groaned "I can't compete with that, now I feel lousy that I can't, not only do these things, didn't think of them in the first place and just don't have the energy to coordinate it all?" she sighs.
It seems that Mcdonalds parties are no longer acceptable for that age group.
So the hangup begins again...... 'why can't I be a better mum like that mum'.....or 'mums like that make mums like me look real bad'..
Honestly, children really don't care if their mum can't master cloud computing, spreadsheets, diverse applications or make fancy sugar iced dolly clothes for dolly cookies, they love mum for who she is; their mum.
All mums are awesome in their own right!
Laugh at the chaos,
Take a 'good' break weekly (locking yourself in the toilet for half an hour, counting to 10 over and over again isn't considered a good break)
Don't stress about having to make the beds before you go to work in the morning; an empty house doesn't care. I have never known a house to have a sign on its front door "My owner didn't make the beds today"
Baked beans on toast for dinner is more than perfectly acceptable, we just don't get enough legumes in our diet anyway.
Don't compare yourself to other mums, they are probably doing the same to you.
Toys and baby paraphernalia scattered around is a sign 'My Family lives here'
Have an FFYD (Fend For Yourself Dinner) night at least once a week if you can. I've started to partake in that great invention.
If your are totally overwhelmed (and who isn't at times) find another mum to talk with and get things off your chest. She might need it too.
Believe in yourself, your kids do.
and,
"No one ever says on their death bed, I should have spent more time in the office"
Enjoy!
