Are You A Stressed-Out Mom?

Are you a stressed-out mom?

Over Thanksgiving, my 23-year-old sister came home from her fancy schmancy job in fashion and perched at my kitchen counter eating potato soup.

“You know, Chaunie, I love your kids and all, but I’m just not sure I would want to do the work of having them,” she said, pondering her future in between comforting bites of mashed carbohydrates. I laughed because despite the fact that I had actually been pregnant with my second kid at her age, I could see where she was coming from. I assured her that parenting really wasn’t that bad and she actually didn’t have to have kids at all if she didn’t want to.

And then she said something that made me stop laughing completely.

“Yeah,” she responded. “It’s just that you always seem so stressed.”

I really took pause when she said that, and I admit that I was actually filled with shame at her words. Because the truth is — I am always stressed. And frankly, that’s just not the kind of mom I want to be.

When I look back at my children’s childhood, in the moments that fill our days right now, I can see images flashing through, like old frames on a slideshow projector from the past. Me, rushing them out of the door in the morning for school; me, huffing when someone (always) spills their cup at dinner; me, skipping pages in the bedtime story at night; me, scolding them for not cleaning up their messes; me, complaining to my husband that I am so far behind on work and housework and Christmas shopping and every other thing in my life.

Those are not images that I’m proud of.

Those are not images I want to see, let alone have my children grow up remembering.

Now, I’m not a mom who wants to guilt us all into putting down our phones or letting the dishes pile up or enjoying every second, because that’s not real life. Some of us need our phones for the work that feeds our families, the dishes have to get done sometime if we want to eat off of them, and not every second of life is meant to be pretty and polished.

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