The mommy martyr

This picture.....

This picture  makes me smile. It also makes me feel slightly crazy cause well taking any picture with 5 kids is crazy. (though wearing pajama pants makes it feel somewhat better....it was sunday afternoon..pajama pants)

So if you cant read whats on the back of my car it says

If you think my hands are full, you should see my heart.

This saying means a whole whole lot to me personally. Hence it being plastered on the back of my car.

So I thought Id do a quick blog post on why.

1. I need to remind others. Yes, I might look frazzled and crazy getting in and out of my car. You might see me chasing a wheelchair zooming down the slightly sloped parking lot all while dragging a grocery cart full of kids behind me. (its happened) You might see me even slightly (of course only slightly) lose my cool with a couple of the sweet charming children. I might drop 15 items and leave 5 more behind when I come to your home. I might misplace my phone 500xs because I'm always running around calling Doctors/friends/husband and then setting it down somewhere. And  a sweet smiling stranger....or okay a stranger EVERY SINGLE TIME I leave the house might kindly come up to me and say with a laugh, "WOW You've Got Your Hands full"  And yes I do. Yes its crazy. (Yes thats pee leaking out of diapered kid)....But these kids have filled my heart even more than they have filled my hands. And I truly want everyone to know that. Because today teens are taught to work harder, work better, get better grades, go to a better college, have a better career, make more money...more more more. being a mommy isnt enough. being a stay at home mommy sure isnt enough. and I want to fight against that thought. hey being a mommy is stinkin awesome world!

2. I need to remind myself. Through all those crazy things I just described. Through the spills, the tears, the fighting, the falling, the 'I need help',  the 'mommy can you...." through the middle of the night cuddles, the pukes, the dinners, the lunches, the clean ups and the 1000 other things that I know every mommy reading this understands.  Here's the thing though. Ive noticed a trend in blogs. And dont get me wrong I get it. I GET IT.!!! I can scream that at the top of my lungs before you read this next part.
There is a going trend in blogs and they all seem to have the same theme.."Being a Mom is Hard." I like to call it the mommy martyr.  And it is. I get it. But sometimes....just sometimes I kind of get tired of seeing the martyr flag rising high for us moms.  I get tired of the, "This is so hard." Lets all go cry in our cups of coffee together and talk about how wiping rear ends is so hard.  I know I'm not going to gain any followers with this post. But here me to the end at least. Are we truly martyrs? Are our lives really truly oh so very difficult? Or do we really truly have the most amazing job and responsibility in the whole world? Are there hard days? YUP. STINK YUP.  But are we doing each other any good by wearing our martyr robes for all to see? I get the honesty and as Ive said multiple times I love it. There is beauty in it. But from personal experience. When I wear the martyr flag for all my friends to see I also wear it for my children to see. They know when they are the burden. They know when mom is fed up, They know when mommy feels like she  has given too much too many times. And I just cant imagine what that must be like. If my friends all walked around acting like they just couldnt put up with one more of my mess ups or shenanigans......well we probably wouldnt be friends any longer. And I probably feel like a totally piece of doggy poo stuck on the bottom of someones shoe.
Then I think of the women who cant have children or who maybe have had multiple miscarriages. Or maybe have one child and would desperately love more.  What must they think of our martyr flags?? If I were them Id want to jerk it out of our scrawny spit up spewed hands and shred it! But really. Nothing puts it into perspective quite like knowing not everyone has this option, not everyone gets to stay home and have kid after kid after kid. So who am I to wave my martyr flag? Who am I to complain and gripe and roll my eyes at something God has BLESSED ME with!!! 
So with all of that said....I need to remind myself. When my hands feel so full I cant take another second. I cant take another day. I cant take another week. I need to remind myself..How blessed. How amazing. How crazy good God is. Because even though my hands are full.....and they are VERY FULL.....my heart is that much more full. And sometimes I want to raise my martyr flag the highest of all.....

God is good. God has blessed.

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