 We
all know burned-out, achievement-oriented women who have left high-powered
careers in order to experience the joy of staying home to raise their children.
They figure if they can run things at the office efficiently, surely the
challenges of running a home should be a piece of cake.
But in no time at all they are on
their knees searching for the lost pacifier, smashing wayward Cheerios in the
process, as the squalling toddler topples out of the high chair. Before long
they would rather take a beating than play another game of Candy-Land. This was not as they pictured it.
Of course
not. You cannot compare the working life to staying at home with children. At
least in the office there is some semblance of logic and order, however
strained at times. Most likely you will not have to deal with someone who
insists on being nude all day. Usually your co-workers will be able to speak
when they want something instead of pointing at the air, wetting themselves and
screaming.
But these earnest mothers don't
understand they are dealing with a completely logic-free paradigm, to quote an
over-used management term. They just try harder to impose order upon the
shifting sands. Consciously or not, desperately in need of a challenge, they
make the decision to become the best stay-at-home moms ever.
They set impossible goals. They see
themselves dancing around a sparkling home wearing MAC lipstick and Jimmy Choo's.
The children's scrapbooks will be arranged chronologically in the polished
bookcase, and of course there will always be organic carob-chip cookies in the
oven.
Sisters, it's the fast lane to the
Funny Farm, and we've all been there.
All of us
stay-at-homes have fallen prey to this mentality to some degree. We compare
ourselves endlessly to other mothers. This one has three kids who have won
early-acceptance to Princeton. That one brings her kids to Guatemala to build
houses for Habitat for Humanity. God, what's wrong with us? We can't even
remember to put the wet laundry in the dryer before it starts a'stinkin'.
So we try
harder. We hit the craft stores and stock up on pipe cleaners and Elmer's glue
so our children can have the tools at hand to become the next Calder. We read The Canterbury Tales to the toddlers
instead of Stop Picking Your Nose, Elmo!
We spend hours planning and decorating the perfect nursery that our kids won't
even remember.
We don't recognize that we are on the
slippery slope to WonderMom-ism until it's too late. One day we find we can't
stop reading Penelope Leach once we start. We begin lying about the mountain of
educational computer games we purchased for our kids. We start to hide the
cartons of toilet paper cores we're saving for craft projects. It's time to
wake up and smell the DiaperGenie.
At this point every mother has to take
a long look in the mirror. Alone. No playgroup can help you now.
Admit that you turn to putty before
fear-producing books like "Incredibly Tedious
Kitchen Counter-Staining Crafts You Should Be Doing With Your Kids Or Else
They'll Wind Up Living In Your Basement Until They're Forty." Accept that
the notices jonesing for field trip chaperones will always be sent home in the
backpacks, but you must find a way to fight the urge within you to say yes I said yes I will Yes!
Once you realize that you are a WonderMom wannabe you will be in
recovery for the rest of your life. Take it one day at a time.
As with
other obsessive, addictive diseases, you have to hit rock bottom before you can
climb your way back to sobriety. Rock bottom for me was my frugal phase. I read
somewhere that I could save a quarter every time I hung the wash to dry instead
of using the dryer. So what if the towels dried in this manner could shred
skin. I kept thinking of the quarters! That's when I knew I needed help.
Luckily I went through the twelve
steps successfully. Step Three was the toughest. That's the one where I had to
get store-bought valentines instead of making them with my kids. Step Six was
bad too. I had to throw away every masterpiece sent home from preschool, layer
by layer, until I could see my refrigerator again. And Step Nine, whew, that
sucked. I had to say no to three separate Girl Scouts hawking Thin Mints. When
I got to Step Twelve and let somebody else be the class parent for the year, I
knew I could stick with the program even though I was a sweaty, shaking mess.
It's easy to see how WonderMom-ism
develops. We see Mothering as a new career. But it's not a career. It's just
living. Most of us have a lot less training for that. I'm reading right out of
the recovery manual now, can you tell?
The awful thing all WonderMoms must
eventually face is that kids don't necessarily need or want constant planned
activity. Once they're past a certain age they just want to know you are there
for speedy snack delivery or to recover their favorite Hot Wheels car from
underneath the sofa where it had gone to die in peace. It got to the point
where my guys would groan pitifully and shuffle into the kitchen whenever I
announced a new craft project in my "I'm a Sunny Mommy" voice.
Please join me in recovery. It's a
freeing feeling when you stop trying to be WonderMom. We have a great time at
the meetings. We feed the kids an occasional nugget of processed food and no
one gasps in disbelief. We often tell the children to stop interrupting the
grown-ups and go find something else to do. If one of us says "No, I will not
read Goodnight, Moon again. Just go
to sleep already." cheers and huzzahs are heard.
We've stopped pretending that playing Hi-Ho Cherry-O is a Kodak moment. If you
wanted to cry the last time you spun the empty bucket, thereby prolonging the
game another 25 minutes, you're one of us. But if you thought, "great, more
time to practice our number skills!" you may not be ready for the twelve steps
just yet.
Recovering WonderMoms like to be alone
once in awhile. We're here for you, darlings, but we just want to pee by
ourselves. The door is locked because we don't want to let you into the
bathroom anymore. We don't want to seize the moment to talk about why girls
don't have penises but can still pee. And we sure as heck don't want a photo of
that in a custom-designed scrapbook.
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Quirkee Voices 
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