My Working Mom Cutting Room Floor

My life is rarely never a seamless stream of organized mornings, productive work, playtime with P, and bedtime routines. Many days, my lunch consists of whatever I can throw in my purse, ten seconds before leaving the house. At least once each week, I find myself staring at my work computer, unsure of how long I’ve actually spent just sitting there. Some nights, I let P watch Yo Gabba Gabba clips because I’m too tired to play “up the stairs, down the stairs” (her new favorite thing).

There are evenings when Chad and I neglect the dinner dishes, opting instead to cozy up on the couch with some popcorn and Franzia. Sometimes, I go to bed in my work clothes, and if my coworkers are lucky, I change the next morning. I shower on occasion (interpret “on occasion” however you’d like), and fix my hair approximately 25 percent of the time.

At our house, at any point in time, you’ll probably step on a few raisins (P’s favorite snack food). Who am I kidding? After walking through our kitchen, the amount of food stuck to the bottom of your feet could probably feed the people of a small country. On weekdays, you’ll find dirty clothes strewn across our basement stairs (too much energy to walk down the actual stairs). And, there’s currently a fork and a jar of peanut butter in P’s bathroom; neither Chad nor I knows how they got there.

When you think about it, each of us is the star in our own reality show. We edit, dramatize, and cut out the unflattering footage of our lives, presenting only what we want the world to see.

I’m just not into that.

This is my cutting room floor. I am a mom, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a full-time worker (outside the home), an aspiring writer, and a little bit of a dreamer. I’m as imperfect as the day is long, and that’s perfectly fine with me. I have too many roles to fill, too many responsibilities on any given day to care about portraying a perfect image to the outside world. With any spare energy I do have, I’m certainly not going to put it into pretending like I have all my sh*t together. If it wasn’t clear from the first few paragraphs, I’ll tell you now: I don’t.

There is an incredible amount of pressure on all mothers, to “get the pre-baby body back,” arrange playdates, put healthy, balanced meals on the table, bake cupcakes for your child’s school fundraiser, volunteer in your child’s class, maintain some semblance of a relationship with your partner, etc., etc., etc. Nobody can do it all, so why are we still pretending we can? And more importantly, why are we trying to look good doing it?