Looking for Mary Poppins or Applying for Mom

Have you ever wondered what would have happened if you had interviewed for the job of parent? Do you think you would have gotten the job? I’m not sure my references would have checked out…

COVER LETTER

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to you today regarding the open Mom position in your company. I have included my resume but I did want to highlight a few accomplishments during my 12 years of Mom experience with my previous employer.

I was very excited to see that you are looking for someone who has experience, possesses creativity, management and organizational skills, event planning expertise, baking and cooking skills, and budgeting knowledge. I have vast amounts of experience in all of these areas. For example, I instituted our new Wake-Up Wednesday policy, which dictates a fresh home cooked breakfast every Wednesday morning so my children have something to look forward to in the middle of the week. I treat each birthday as an extravaganza by throwing at least two parties in addition to what we call Mommy-Child Day, where we do whatever the child wants to do for the whole day.

But it isn’t all fun and games. I make sure we read, have clean clothes, do our homework, and eat healthy meals. I also coordinate the before and after school and weekend activities to provide enrichment beyond the classroom. In my spare time, I maintain our accounts and budget for expenditures.

I look forward to hearing from you soon regarding your open position. I feel that my experience and enthusiasm would be a good addition to your team.

Sincerely,

Jenny

REFERENCE CHECKS

Reference Number One: Moose

Please tell me about the candidate’s strengths:
She has a lot of strengths. She makes really good monkey bread.

Please tell me about the candidate’s weaknesses:
She doesn’t always follow through. She started Wake-Up Wednesday, which is great. But she says that we don’t do it in the summer because every day is like Friday so we don’t need a special breakfast in the middle of the week. So she can be a bit unreliable. She also gets upset about the house and says we have to start helping. I’m not sure if she is good with time management if she requires so much help to do her job. I can also tell that time management is a weakness because she frequently seems frazzled with the simplest of schedules, such as having a birthday dinner, concert and basketball practice all on the same night. Because of her lack of planning, she had to learn how to tie a tie while waiting for her enchiladas at the restaurant. What a scene!

And she does complain about not having enough down time when she has a reasonable working schedule. We give her from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. off every day, unless one of us is sick or forgets to get a uniform washed for the next day. I think eight hours is plenty of downtime for one person.

Tell me about a time she had to handle a difficult situation:
Once I asked a simple question about the human body and got a 45 minute talk about the birds and the bees! And she seems to think we should talk about this stuff openly and often! Wait, did you ask how she creates difficult situations or handles them…?

Would you hire her again?
Yeah, she’s pretty good. She does make really good monkey bread. Although I would like her to reconsider her Summer Wake-Up Wednesday policy. She does do a good job with birthdays, except for that one time when she planned my party over a holiday weekend and only one person showed up. I think this goes back to her planning skills…

Reference Number Two: Squirrel

Please tell me about the candidate’s strengths:
She makes good cinnamon rolls, but they are out of a can…She also makes pretty good bunny voices for my stuffed rabbits. Oh, and she buys me good presents. Can I talk about my dad now? He is so much fun – he takes me on snowmobile rides, four-wheeler rides, gets me Icees whenever I want them…

Please tell me about the candidate’s weaknesses:
She says no. A lot. Like all the time, all she ever tells me is no. She says something about making a bad life choice, but I have yet to see her credentials to make that determination. For example, she says I can’t drive until I am older despite the fact that I have driven a Gator (with assistance.) She also makes me read when she can do it perfectly well herself. So I’d say she gets a little overzealous with the delegation.

Have we talked about her physical limitations? She took an excessive amount of time off the job this summer for her knee. Clearly she has some limitations now – she says she can’t lift me up anymore. What do they do with horses with lame legs…?

Tell me about a time she had to handle a difficult situation:
Have you heard about the time she dropped the jar of spaghetti sauce at Hy-Vee? Right in the check out lane. Sauce and glass everywhere. She tried to play it off cool, but I like to remind her of this incident even though it’s been three years because it’s important to keep the help humble.

Would you hire her again?
Well, it would really depend on if she changes her attitude. I have told her on multiple occasions that I can replace her. Those kind of remarks seem to work for a while but then she returns to her usual self. There was a time where she put the wrong cheese in the snack that I requested. I pointed it out to her and boy, she did not respond well to the constructive criticism. How is she supposed to get better if she won’t listen to feedback? So I’m really on the fence with this question. Maybe if there was a probationary period…

DECISION: SECOND CHOICE; MAKE OFFER TO MARY POPPINS FIRST

When You Try Your Best But You Don't Succeed or The Self-Inflicted Shame Wound

Disclaimer: Everything below is a self-inflicted wound. At no point did anyone imply that I am a horrible mom or accuse me of being neglectful. I took care of all of that on my own.

Friends, let me be honest with you about my summer. While at times you may have seen me smiling and heard me say uplifting, optimistic phrases, please make no mistake that this past summer was an intense struggle both physically, emotionally and spiritually. If you need to get caught up, it’s important to know that for a variety of reasons, both healthy and unhealthy, exercise is a vital component to my life. And in May, possibly as a result of my relationship with exercise, I had knee surgery which turned out to be more invasive and intense than expected. It landed me in a knee immobilizer for about 10 weeks, five of which I couldn’t put any weight on my leg, and then very very slowly I gradually added in weight-bearing and flexibility. It has been five months since surgery and I am still in physical therapy and am currently working on using stairs. This summer my stress outlet, aka exercise, was taken away from me and my immobility left me rumbling with multiple demons ranging from body image issues, to worthiness to perfectionism and shame. For the first few days, going to the bathroom on my own was my major accomplishment for the day. It took me three weeks to be able to put on my own shoes. Getting dressed left me breathless. In July I started the tedious process of relearning how to walk. From May through August, I rarely got a night of sleep due to pain and restlessness. I could not carry a cup of coffee or a plate of food due to the crutches and had to rely on everyone around me to feed and water me. To put it lightly, this summer was a challenge.

In addition to the physical challenge, summers have historically been busy times for my husband, who works long hours and would unpredictably work late or early. There were days he would come home just to get something out of the oven for dinner because I could not lift and bend at the same time. At my own job, we were short staffed all summer and our admin and I were trying to cover two individuals’ jobs and our own. Due to my physical condition, making it through a work day was a test of my endurance that by the time I got home I literally had just the energy to feed the kids if Pete was working and ask them to get ready for bed. There were many tears of pain, frustration and guilt this summer. Every day ended in exhaustion, followed by nights of despair from trying to sleep, all to be repeated again.

Friends, what I am saying is that this summer sucked. I tried to make the best of it and enjoy everything I could but make no mistake. I did not experience this summer as much as I survived it. And I did survive it. I’ve run a few marathons and this summer felt like hitting the wall with a hill up ahead and four miles to go. When the end of August rolled around and I was finally moving better, starting to exercise (albeit slowly) and finally sleeping at night, I looked back on those months, panting, hands on thighs, and thought, how the hell did I get up that hill of life this summer? We didn’t move forward this summer but we didn’t move backward, right? I don’t want to call it pride, but maybe I felt relief that we had made it to the other side. I was actually looking forward to starting the school year.

We were incredibly fortunate to get an amazing teacher for the Squirrel in first grade. She makes me excited to send him to school every day. I feel like she will “get” him and his quirks; it is going to be a great year. And in her amazing-ness, she believes in additional phone conferences to supplement the traditional conferences. Last week was our first phone conference where I learned that my Squirrel is woefully behind in reading. I immediately flashback to the Moose’s struggles in first grade with reading. Six years ago when I heard the Moose was behind in reading, as one does with their first born, I jumped to the conclusion that he would never go to college, he would never get a “good job” and would be illiterate for the rest of his life. Naturally I freaked out. We had epic battles over sight words and reading to the point where I flipped out and that moment still holds a place in my Parenting Hall of Shame. I promised myself after my experiences with the Moose that I wouldn’t overreact again should this happen with the Squirrel.  (FYI, the Moose loves reading now and I have the insight of knowing that things will turn out okay.) I (fake) calmly tell the Squirrel’s teacher that I’m not going to freak out. She tells me that he says he doesn’t read at home and we don’t read to him. Cue that scratchy record sound where everything stops. Then she tells me that it may be time to panic. Fuck.

As much as I try not to, I go straight into that shame spiral. First, I did read to him this summer. It was one of the few activities I could do with the kids. But I’m not going to lie. We didn’t do sight words and I didn’t force him to read to me. I just couldn’t. My energy was wrapped up in me this summer. I was just trying to get through the summer and had to put my health above things like sight words. I thought I had made peace with the guilt of not being able to be Super Mom this summer. Consider the peace treaty over. I let down my Squirrel and now this amazing teacher thinks I’m a horrible, neglectful mom who doesn’t care about education or her child’s future. Spiral, spiral, spiral.

You know that Coldplay song, “Fix You”? “When you try your best but you don’t succeed….” That’s me. I tried my best and you know what? I didn’t succeed. I let all of this sink in for a while. I really did try my best. And my best wasn’t my typical best, but it was the best I had. And for the first time in 12 years, I had to put my wellbeing above my children’s so that I could get back to being Super Mom. Despite my battles against it, I had to succumb to my physical needs and rest after going to a grocery store. I had to take two hour long naps with ice packs after outings. And yes, things like sight words took a back seat this summer. And now I’m paying the price. My demons are saying that excuses like knee surgery and a crazy work environment are just cheap excuses for dropping the ball on something as important as my Squirrel’s reading level. And while I’m making a list, there are a lot of other things I’ve let go – can I please get a piece of paper and pen so we can write them all down?

In my usual fashion, I want to keep this all to myself and beat myself up for being the terrible parent that I am. Because as I’ve learned, shame thrives in secrets and really, this is my penance for my neglect. However, in a rare moment, I break down and email a friend and explain the situation. She reassures me that I’m not a horrible parent. That this summer was particularly rough. And she offers help, not judgement. I text another friend who also reassures me that things will all work out, that I am good enough. And here I sit, telling all of you my story now. But the purpose of my story has changed. I’m not telling you so you can tell me that I’m a Good Mom. I’m telling you because sometimes your best won’t be enough. And that sucks. But that’s still okay. We fail sometimes and it doesn’t mean that we are horrible people or parents. There are times we will be running our hardest and think we are close to that finish line, when we trip and fall. The fact that we are willing to get up, dust ourselves off, and start running again is what matters. We may not win every race, but if we try to finish, that’s what matters.

Much to the Squirrel’s chagrin, the town library sent us home with a stack of books to work on. And his teacher has sent home books and sight word lists. And I am only in physical therapy once a week now and am only working on learning how to go up and down stairs. I’ve learned how to walk and have use of both of my hands and while I’m not running yet, I’ve started the race again. And just like it was with his big brother, I know that we will get him back on track. And thanks to all of the time I spent sitting this summer, I’ve been meditating regularly which certainly helps when I’m working with the Squirrel now.

And I’m back to being proud that I survived the summer. Just because I didn’t succeed at everything doesn’t mean that my best wasn’t amazing. It was.