Success

Many years ago I had a discussion with a friend who was going through a bit of a ‘moment’. She was not long out of university and working her way up as a lawyer. She was upset that some of her university peers were more successful than her. I remember telling her that it was all relative. To me she was extremely successful, she was a university graduate with a double degree, she was working at a Big Five Firm and she was well respected amongst her peers and supervisors. But to her it wasn’t enough. I told her that success is different things to different people and perhaps she just needed to revaluate her definition of success, to some people just having a job is a success. We were on different pages, I couldn’t understand why she didn’t feel successful when the world was her oyster and she didn’t understand why I didn’t understand. Today I understand. Ten years & three children later and I think I understand what she meant that day.

I’ve been feeling like a failure lately. I know that realistically I have no reason to feel this way. I have three beautiful children, we have a modest house, Hubby has a job, we have food on the table and clean clothes and a house full of love. How could I possibly see that as failure? . It’s not that I see my life or my accomplishments as a failure, it’s that I see my inability to do what I’m ‘supposed’ to do as a SAHM as failure.

The problem is that I have this preconceived notion of what being a SAHM entails. I have this notion that someone in my position should love being a SAHM, she should wake in the mornings and be dressed with her hair done and make up on and breakfast all ready to go for the family before anyone else wakes. She should take the kiddies off to school and kindy and stay to help with crafts and reading and canteen duty and then trot off home to get after school snacks ready and to start preparing dinner. Between doing this and picking the kiddies up she flies around the house cleaning and tidying and keeping everything neat and tidy (obviously while the baby takes a long nap). After picking the kiddies up she heads to the supermarket to buy a few extras needed to complete dinner, all the while laughing and smiling with her kiddies, then heads home and finishes off dinner while the kiddies sit at the table and have a snack and talk happily about their day. The kiddies then skip off and play nicely with each other while she puts the finishing touches on dinner, feeds and baths the baby, makes school lunches and then dishes up dinner when Daddy arrives home. Everyone sits around the dinner table happily eating and sharing stories of their day and laughing with each other. She then baths the kiddies, reads them a bed time story, kisses them on the head and the kiddies go off to sleep. She feeds & settles the baby with no fuss. She tidies the kitchen, potters around the house finishing off a few housekeeping tasks, then takes a nice long hot bath, dresses for bed and curls up with her husband for the night.

Unfortunately for me, my reality looks more like..... Get woken up at some ridiculous hour by husband asking if he has any clean underwear. Tell him where the clothes line is. Drag my tired arse out of bed at the last possible moment, usually when the baby is screaming at me to get up. Feed the baby. Try to stay awake. Ask the boys to go to the breakfast table. Stand in the kitchen yelling to the boys to come to the breakfast table. Try to stay awake. Yell to the boys again to come to the breakfast table. Make breakfast for the boys. Go get dressed. Try to stay awake. Yell at the boys to stop messing around and eat. Go brush teeth. Yell at the boys to stop fighting. Try to stay awake. Pack school bags. Tell the boys to get dressed. Tell the boys to get dressed. Tell the boys to get dressed. Try to stay awake. Take the boys to school/kindy. Come home. Put baby to sleep. Try to stay awake. Fail. Fall asleep. Wake to postman delivering something bought online during sleep deprived state. Wonder what the hell I was thinking when ordering that! Drink coffee. Lots of coffee. Drink more coffee. Wander around the house looking at all of the housework that needs doing. Contemplate where to start. Thank God that the baby wakes and needs feeding so housework can wait. Feed baby. Continue to attempt to use The Force to get housework done. Play with baby, spend way too much time on Facebook and eBay. Pick boys up from school/kindy. Get home. Try to get baby to sleep while breaking up WW3. Break up WW4. Stand in front of fridge/cupboard trying to work out what to cook for dinner. Realise that I was supposed to go to the supermarket today. Spend 2.4 seconds contemplating taking 3 kids to the supermarket then decide on plain pasta for dinner instead. Tell everyone that dinner is ready. Break up WW5. Dish dinner up. Tell everyone that dinner is ready. Tell everyone that dinner is ready. Tell boy 1 to stop ‘looking’ at boy 2. Boy 2 refuses to eat dinner. Argue with boys about showering. Argue with boys about brushing teeth. Argue with boys about putting PJ’s on. Argue with boys about which story to read. Argue with boys about going to bed. Boy 2 is hungry. Argue with boy 2 about not finishing his dinner. Yell at boys to stop fighting and go to sleep. Yell at boys to stop fighting and go to sleep. Argue with boy 2 about not finishing dinner. Yell at boys to go to sleep. Try to settle baby. Unsuccessful. Make lunches, do dishes, tidy kitchen. Try to settle baby. Unsuccessful. Tidy loungeroom, get on Facebook. Try to settle baby. Successful. Spend way too much time on the computer or reading because it’s the only time I’ve had to myself all day. Make plans about how organised I will be the following day. Make lists of all the things I will achieve the following day. Make a list of all the food that I will buy the following day and the subsequent meals that I will prepare. Make a pact to be more proactive, energised, focused, present and organised. Realise it’s 2am. Drag my tired arse off to bed. Realise I forgot to shower. Add that to the list of things to do tomorrow. Get woken up several times by boys. Get woken up by baby, feed baby. Repeat.

So whilst I now understand my friends feelings of not being successful regardless of others view, I still maintain that it’s relative and that in order to feel successful I could just shift my perception of success. If I could just rid myself of the stupid notion of the perfect SAHM then I might just stand a chance of seeing myself as a successful wife and mother. I’ll add that to the list of things to do tomorrow.....

Apologies

When I hear people say “I make no apology for who I am” I just think “Wow, really?” What a great place to be in. To be that self assured and so at peace with who you are and the decisions you make. I, on the other hand, apologise for who I am daily, often several times a day. I am flawed and I still have so much to learn.

I apologise to the people that I glare at and mumble under my breath about in the supermarket because I am yet to master acceptance and tolerance. I can not control the idiocy of others but as I tell my children, I CAN control my reaction to them, so I apologise for my lack of tolerance and acceptance.

I apologise to my children for not really having any idea what I’m doing in this parenting gig and for losing my shit more often than I should. I believe in calm parenting, in talking things through and in leading by example – unfortunately I don’t always live up to those ideals and philosophies.

I apologise for being passionate about various topics but not knowing everything there is to know about them. I have a tendency to hit the ground running with limited information and good intentions. I do strive to learn as much as I can on topics that I’m passionate about, but there are only so many hours in each day and real life doesn’t stop just because I want to sit and read about something.

I apologise for food choices that I make, for where I buy my coffee and where those profits go, for not knowing where and how my clothes are made, for throwing out perfectly good food.

I apologise for not being the type of friend that others need me to be. Over the years I’ve learned what I need and now that I have a family I’ve realised that what I need has to come before what others outside of my family need from me or else it all falls into a heap and my family suffer.

I apologise for not being an earth warrior. For not making decisions and following through on things that will help to save and protect our earth for generations to come. I truly believe in living life this way, in our responsibility to try to undo some of the damage we have done, but I’m lazy and I’m broke and I’m more than just a little selfish. For this I apologise deeply to my children and my grandchildren and all the generations to come. I have no good excuse for this. There is no good excuse.

My list of apologies could go on for pages and pages, but at the end of the day you get the picture. I am sorry. I don’t know that I will ever be one of those people who “makes no apologies” because I will never be able to see myself as anything other than flawed. This is about the unconscious acts. It is one thing to apologise for a conscious act, but I apologise for the unconscious acts that I know are bound to be inappropriate on some level, or upset someone somewhere or cause harm – I guess it’s along the lines of the butterfly effect. I acknowledge that my actions have a wide effect, that the world is bigger than me and my immediate surroundings, so I apologise for the not so positive effects that I inadvertently cast out into the world.