dear am i enough mom

Am I good enough?

Those four little words mull around in my brain throughout the day. I’ll interact with others, write an email, read to the kids, cook dinner, fold laundry, mow the lawn, do a craft project, clean the living room for the third time, volunteer my time, bandage a skinned knee, clean the kitchen for the fourth time, will work very hard and at the end of the day will rest in my bed wondering if I measured up. If I’m mom enough, wife enough, homemaker enough, writer enough, friend enough.

Am I enough?

Just the other day, at Target, I found myself wandering through the store being told that I need this or that or I should color my hair like this or if I work really hard I’ll have the perfect body or my kids need to eat only this or we need to have these summer fun outdoor toys or I simply must get new shoes for everyone or my kids aren’t behaving as good as that mom who’s got the cart full of healthy wonderful food.

Then I wonder if I’m doing enough learning activities and then I see the ice cream and next to it is the frozen yogurt making me feel guilty about the ice cream in the cart and then again, when I pay I see the simply living type magazines and realize that I am out of breath and feeling overwhelmed wondering if I am doing enough.

The store made me exhausted.

I listened to the non-stop chatter of society that constantly tells me, tells you, that I just need to do one more thing and then I’ll be perfect.

Perfect.

Until the next one thing comes about and I need to start again and again and again.

Sometimes, I joke that I should have lived hundreds of years ago – when the needs were simply survival and food and family and survival again. It seems like it was more focused on important and less on all of these things that just exhaust us moms.

When did being a mom, and being intentional, and working hard get lost in the shuffle full of a world of new needs and exhausting expectations?

When did the wants become the needs?

We do work hard.

Yet, often we don’t really so how  hard we work.  We’ve got Mother’s Day, where everyone stops and goes whoa mom you are amazing and you do a ton, and then we’re back to the every day cycle of more and more to do and more and more to manage. And yet, in it all,  sometimes we live being told that we don’t really measure up and the only real way to measure up is to do more, spend more, volunteer more, and do more of more.

Ultimately? That stuff does not matter.

What matters, my wondering if I am enough mom, is that you don’t base your worth on this worldly ideal of things that we need to buy, to do, to work at, to lose, to gain, to be.

Enough. Enough. Enough.

You are enough. (read Why Being a Mom is Enough) 

It’s okay if you choose to stay home.

It’s okay if you choose to work.

It’s okay if your kids do no extra activities.

It’s okay that you have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches three days in a row.

It’s okay if you only eat organic and love it.

It’s okay that your garden has weeds.

It’s okay if you never want to garden ever.

It’s okay that your kitchen counter has a pile of papers to file.

It’s okay if your email inbox is overflowing.

It’s okay that the throw pillows on the front porch aren’t coordinated and switched to reflect fall.

It’s okay that sometimes you get behind in laundry.

It’s okay that you choose to say no to all the world says to say yes to.  

It’s okay.

You work hard, you keep trying, you keep doing, you keep being you, keep being mom.

Walk through Target with your head high. Even if the kids aren’t perfect, and you don’t have the greatest shoes, and your hair is in a pony tail, and you’ve got Fruit Roll-ups {did you know they’re gluten free?}  in the cart, and you’re stressing a bit about money, and you’re sipping a full calorie latte.

That’s part of being real.

We each have a story.

We need more real in this world. It’s the real that makes us better and stronger and more encouraging for others. It’s the real that makes the extra moments, the trips, the decisions to do activities, the quiet moments at home matter more.

From me, the pony tailed wearing once out of breath wondering if I am enough mom to you, the totally worth it, totally enough, keep on trying, and totally amazing mom. Being a mom is enough. The stuff, the world’s idea of am I enough doesn’t matter. What matters? That you are the one there in the morning, the one with open arms for those kids, the one who picks up those papers on the counter and straightens the pile, that you keep plugging away at the laundry, and that half the garden has weeds, and sometimes you buy Fruit Roll Ups, and maybe the kids weren’t perfect but were simply joyful to be in the store with you type of mom.

That is way more than enough.