I have been on pretty much all sides of the Mommy Wars. You know the Mommy Wars. The constant battle over who has it harder and who is in the right. Who is raising their children the right way and who is ruining their children forever. Yes, those Mommy Wars.
I began as the young mom. I married at 18 and had my first son at age 19. Then, I was a stay at home mom for the first 11 months of my oldest son’s life. After those 11 months I went back to work full time. So I was a working mom. I was also a military wife at the time. Anyone knows that being a mom within the military life is a different world all its own. Then I was the stay at home mom to two. Then back to work. THEN the big one….I was a single, full time working, part time student mom.
Are you still with me?
Then I was the stay at home mom again. Then we added son #3 and son #4. So now I am the stay at home, homeschooling mom of four.
All this to say, I understand where almost every woman is coming from. I understand the need to feel important to yourself and to the world as something other than “just a mom”. I understand that deep down desire to be the most important person in your child’s world. I understand the wanting to stay at home and be with your children as much as possible. I understand the need to have a life of your own outside your home. I understand that sometimes being a mom can be a drag. I also understand there is no more important job in the world. I also know, that no matter what stage of motherhood I have been in I have ALWAYS had terrible guilt about something. Guilt about dropping my kids off with strangers for nine hours a day. Guilt about not feeding them enough vegetables. Guilt about yelling too much or not paying enough attention. Guilt, it’s what we moms do.
So I am here to say that I know that 99.9% of moms are good moms that only want what is best for their children. I believe in my case that is to be a stay at home, homeschooling mom. What is best for you and your kids? I don’t have a clue. I don’t pretend to know. On the same note, no one outside God, me and my husband can dictate what being a good mom to MY kids looks like.
In the end…..my name is LaShawn. I am just a mom.
I know, how could I possibly have the blues in the summertime, a time of long, sun-filled days, swimming, camping, boating, campfires and leisurely days? Summer is my favorite time of year. The kids are home, the activities are numerous and fun and I get my gardening time in.
Except that none of this is happening, other than the kids being home. So far, this summer vacation has been filled with rain, cool temperatures, doctor’s appointments, dental visits, occasionally listless kids and crazy working hours for me. As a work-from-home freelance writer, I’ve been running at top speed for the past several weeks and it’s starting to catch up with me.
I had all these grandiose plans (OK, so they weren’t exactly grandiose) to have a loose schedule for the five of us, ensuring that we all knew what we were doing when, but I haven’t even had time to think about the schedule, much less make it. In a (possibly semi-misguided) effort to round up more work for the fall when all four of my kids will actually be in school all day, every day, I’ve been running my tail off trying to get clients, assignments, work, etc., as well as working super-hard on my blog. It makes me feel good to be this proactive, but it’s also incredibly time-consuming.
My garden is still completely barren and now it seems like it’s probably too late to plant it. That’s mostly my own fault because I hate the planting part — love everything else, but not that — and so I’ve been putting it off since I’ve been so busy.
My house is not even close to being in the kind of shape it should be most of the time because I’m usually holed up in my office not paying attention to it. (And if you’re under the assumption that I don’t spend any time with my kids, that’s just not the case. They spend a lot of their time in my office with me, often all four of them at once, which is probably a lot of the reason why my work takes much longer than it otherwise would.)
Next week I will be gone on a church-related convention, which will no doubt be a nice breather for me, but I’m going to miss my twins’ 11th birthday while I’m gone, which makes me (and them) sad. By the time I get back home, summer vacation will be 1/3 over!
So, I’m trying to think of my trip as a transition time, of sorts. I’m taking my computer along to squeeze in any work I can, so I’m going to take advantage of the hours on the plane and finally create that loose schedule. Hopefully by the time I get back the weather will finally be conducive to go to the lake and camp out. I’m also going to attempt to get my garden planted this weekend so I can at least get some fruits and vegetables yet this summer.
If I don’t take the reigns here, the summer is going to fly by in the same manner it has been and I’m going to continue in my summertime blues mood, which is not good for anyone. Like everything in life, it’s all about balance, something I need to find ASAP. Time with the kids, time to tend to the house, time for work, time to garden, time to myself…figuring out what fits where is going to be my biggest challenge in the next couple months.
How do you find balance in your life?
Sarah E. Ludwig is the mom of four mostly wonderful kids, fraternal twin girls (11 next week) and two boys (nearly-7 and 5) and works from home as a freelance writer. They live in a remote area of the country where they can enjoy campfires in their backyard, the kids can sleep in the pop-up camper or tents at night if they want to and there is virtually no traffic of any sort, let alone people, nearby. She also blogs at Parenting By Trial and Error.
My last post here at Larger Families was about my summer childcare/programming dilemma … x 5. Now that summer’s actually here, it’s time to update and ask how everyone else’s summer is fleshing out.
My oldest daughter (she’s 16) is halfway done with her first week of being gone most of the summer. She’s such a busy kid already, and not home much, so it doesn’t seem entirely odd to have her gone. The twins have moved into the room she shares with my 9 year old (the plan is to get the 16 year old’s bedroom in the basement completed by the end of the summer). The girls are (so far) loving sharing a room. We’ll see how long that lasts….
My 14yo son is doing well. Figuring out what to do with him was probably my biggest challenge! He’s spending 4 mornings a week working out at the high school, and picking up some random landscaping hours, working for his Dad. There’s still more time in his schedule for computer and videos games than any earthly being needs …. but we’re working on that.
I ended up enrolling my three youngest in daycamp for the three days a week that I work. Unfortunately, even with the staff discount I get, the fees are more than my part time job affords. I decided, during the night last night (am I the only one who does their best thinking between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m.?) that losing money to work at my job was causing significantly more stress than it was worth. I know my girls will be disappointed, because it’s a GREAT program, and they’re having so much fun … but it’s just not working for our family as a whole.
So there you have it, my life in a nutshell: stress over making plans; make decisions; change plans. Rinse and repeat.
But enough about me … Tell me how your summer is going!
Hi there,
I am visiting from our larger family’s blog called Se7en. We have Se7en kids at this stage: four boys, three girls and one pending. We always intended to have se7en kids… and when #7 arrived we looked at each other and knew that we needed, well one more! So #8 is due in September.We don’t feel like a larger family, but since most of our “large-familied” friends have four kids and we will have double that, then I guess we can be called a slightly larger family! We do turn a lot of heads when we venture out in the world and since we don’t fit so well into a cupboard we generally turn a lot of heads!!!Turns out that we really just blog about the life and times of our family: crafts we do, recipes we try and plenty of homeschool resources that have worked for us. We do also post a couple of “Organizing Se7en” posts and we are intending to post some of these posts over here on LargerFamilies.com. Turns out blogging about our day to day life not only provides tips and ideas to other moms but it does blast some of the “larger-family” myths out of the water… Just because your kids are part of a clan doesn’t mean they aren’t individuals, with their own personal purpose and ideas!!!
So let me introduce the family: There is me: The mother person and my husband: The father person. Followed by the Se7en Little Hoods…Hood #1: Is eleven and he loves writing books and cartoons, and is mad about anything to do with dragons.Hood #2: Is almost 10, he loves all things electronic and anything to do with gadgets: making them or dismantling them.Hood #3: Is just 8, she loves anything pretty and girly and is passionate about paper dolls.Hood #4: Is almost six, he is also our resident artist at least three times more prolific than his nearest sibling rival.Hood #5: Is four and is our celebrity chef and resident cook. He has been contributing to every meal we have had since he was about 18 months old!Hood #6: Is almost three and she is totally wild about animals, the wilder the beast the better! She is always dragging obscure creatures into our house from the garden… frogs, moles, wild ducks…Hood #7: Is nearly 18 months and just loves reading - anything and everything!That’s us for now!