Mother of the Year

So, as everyone in the United States is aware of due to the plethora of commercials telling you what to buy for your mother, spammy emails doing the same, and the sappy Facebook posts about how awesome mothers are as a general rule, this past Sunday was Mother’s Day.

 Under many definitions of the word, I am a Mother.  I have felt justified in celebrating Mother’s Day on my own behalf (or rather, allowing others to celebrate me) since 2001 when my son wasn’t born yet but was still old enough to kick me in the kidneys from time to time.  My own Mother is still alive and worthy of celebration, and I know how lucky I am to have her around to give me guilt trips and aggravate me on a regular basis. 

 I don’t know any Mothers who don’t feel guilty on a pretty regular basis.  We are all aware of the millions of things we shouldn’t have said out loud, the times we lost our temper, our questionable decision making abilities, and our complete inability to vacuum our already clean carpets with a smile on our faces while wearing sensible pumps, a shirtwaist dress, and heels.  I don’t know about you, but I have a pretty lengthy tally of the things I’m sure my children will be discussing with a therapist for hundreds of dollars an hour sometime in the 2030s.

 There are Moms out there who manage to do all kinds of things I am incapable of doing.  Coordinating ribbons?  You're lucky if you get a present from my children (me) that isn't wrapped in the plastic bag it came in.  And I’m sorry, but as yucky as school lunch might be it only costs $1.75 that I can prepay once in the beginning of the year, and doesn’t require me to have things like non-moldy bread in the house and get up with more than 30 seconds to spare before we have to leave the house RIGHT NOW OR WE’RE GOING TO BE LATE.  I only manage to see two out of three notes my children bring home from school (usually written by parents who are more together than I am) asking me to please bring a cut flower from my yard on Monday so we can give the teacher a bouquet for whatever bouquet-giving recognition day it is today.  A) If you want a cut flower from my yard it is going to be a dandelion; B) I didn’t see the note until two days after I was supposed to bring the flower in; and C) even if I had known I was supposed to bring the blamed thing in I 1) didn’t have time to get it cut and appropriately wrapped so it wouldn’t die or get crushed on the way to school; 2) probably wouldn’t have remembered even if I had the time; and 3) would much rather have just slipped the class Mom, or some other more together Mom a twenty at open house and just told them I was relying on them to pick up my slack.

 The problem I have with all this is that despite my inability to do all (or any) of the mommy-like things I know other Moms are doing and feel inadequate for not doing, I really don’t think I’m a slacker Mom.  Heck --- I am President of the School Council, for crying out loud.  I have done career day for seven straight years.  I am generally not late to school band concerts and plays, and only miss awards ceremonies if I am more than 600 miles away.  (I was in New York for my 20th High School Reunion – what do you want from me?)  I tell my kids I love them every day, and haven’t throttled either one of them, despite the occasional great temptation.  So why do I feel like I’m falling on the job?

 I’m going to say that Pinterest and Women’s Magazines (the forerunner of Pinterest) have a lot to do with it.  Pinterest, for those of you who don’t know, is a kind of virtual bulletin board you have, where you can ‘pin’ ideas for arts and crafts, decorating, recipes, or whatever, and where you can look at what other people have ‘pinned.’  Overachiever Moms ‘pin’ stuff like the Thanksgiving cupcakes they made using an Oreo and candy corn as the tail of the turkey.  Each of these articles or pins will start with something like, “These were so easy and didn’t hardly take any time at all.”  Oh yeah?  Well, you can take your ‘hardly any time at all’ and put it….ahem ahem, excuse me.  This is a family publication and I sometimes pretend to be a lady.

 Maybe I’m not as organized as some other Moms, or maybe I’m not as willing to sacrifice precious and scarce sleeping hours or alone time in the potty, but frankly I think if I actually show up somewhere relatively on time while wearing two shoes and with my clothing right-side out, I think I’ve accomplished something and deserve praise.  I choose to think of it as teaching my children independence and problem solving skills rather than my complete inability to do for them as much as I’d like.  I’ve already exceeded my Mother’s first-day-of-school-breakfast-standard, anyway.  She promised to get up early and make us breakfast one year.  She did in fact get up early, put an unopened box of Raisin Bran on the table and went back to bed.  On the first day of school this year I actually got up early enough to make non-instant grits.  Besides, the proof is in the pudding, right?  My children are amazing: they are smart and funny and responsible (usually); kindhearted and talented, and downright good looking to boot.

 So yeah.  Maybe I am a pretty good Mom.