Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Children & motherhood

Snapshots from my recent guilt trip

I feel the need to confess. I’m not 100 percent satisfied with being a mom.

I love my kids. They’re a great joy. They make me laugh, and I’m grateful that God gave them to me. I’m still amazed at the whole womb to birth to child development process.

But.

I need more than this. More than dirty diapers, jarred baby food, car seats, breastfeeding, potty training, waking up at 5 a.m. to crying children and a constant state of unclean. People tell me I’m going to miss these days. Really? I’m going to miss graham crackers stuffed into a piggy bank?
Stepping on toys in the middle of the night? Temper tantrums? Getting up 20 times during a meal to meet the needs of a  2-year-old, then a 10-month-old, then back to the 2-year-old? Stickers in every corner of the house, and on the van?

And for this, I feel guilty.

I know moms who seem to be totally content in their role. I love that you home school, make Halloween costumes, create fun activities and projects to do on rainy days, and enjoy your kids so much that even a day without them is hard.

I’m not you.

For this, too, I feel guilty.

Why is it that no matter our situation, we moms seem to always be on a guilt trip? And is it only moms or are women, for some reason, prone to book themselves on a one-way flight to can’t-measure-up land?

I heard at Bible study tonight that women find it tough to be “too much and not enough all at the same time.” (Our video quoted Staci Eldredge, “Captivating” author, among others.)

So, we can’t win? If we’re too much we feel guilty and if we’re not enough we feel guilty. That’s enough to make me feel guilty.

God has given me a passion — OK, I’ll call it a gift even if I don’t always want to believe that — for writing. And I’m insanely frustrated right now because there are words, stories, projects, scenes in my head, fighting for attention, trying to make their way from my brain to a computer screen somewhere, and I can’t make it happen. I can’t find the time. When I do have some time, I feel like I’m too wiped out to put in the effort writing requires. I need to read and research and write, and instead my days are spent with my two darling adorable children who will only be this age for so long, and at times, I’m resentful that I don’t seem to have any time to do what I was made to do.

And, you guessed it, I go back to feeling guilty.

So, what’s a mom to do? I can’t stop raising my kids. I’m not even sure we’re done having kids. I know that raising them is a worthwhile experience, but I can’t ignore the passion to write that burns inside me. I’m really bad at waiting. And I think to myself: if God is making me wait on the writing, then why is my head full of ideas?

I feel stranded, and I need a way out. I’d like to settle in the land in contentment, but I’m not sure I have the resources to make it there right now.

If you know a good travel agent, let me know. I’ve taken my last guilt trip.

Diary of a fat kid

Week 4, Day 2. It’s getting serious now. Today we drove to the Lebanon Valley Rail Trail (sort of like the trail that goes to Lowell Park for all you Sauk Valley-ites) for our training session. The trail will be part of the 5K course we plan to run in November. I don’t know what it was about today — Two days of rest? A long walk the night before? No breakfast? — but I struggled to stay motivated today. For the first time since we started this journey, I felt like giving up during one of the running segments. It’s a mental game for me right now, I think. My body can do it. I know my body can do it. But, at least today, I didn’t want to. We finished without turning around, so we had a long walk back to the car, but by the time that was over, I felt like I could run again, not that I was going to, but I had recovered my will a little.

The reality of running this far is starting to weigh on me. I keep thinking of myself as the fat kid trying to run a mile and a half in gym class in enough time not to fail. I see the athletes and skinny kids passing me, finishing with an A or a B grade while I struggled to push myself to a D grade. I’m wondering if I really can do this, if I really have it in me.

Forgive my side trip into therapy here for a minute, but this teenage insecurity has been plaguing me lately. Last night, I suggested to my husband that we go for a walk as a family because I didn’t think our 2-year-old had had enough exercise that day, and I thought, when I looked at her, that I could see a bit of a “pooch” in her belly.

So here’s my fear: I am still scarred by my own body image insecurities and will pass those on to my daughter through my actions, attitudes, behaviors, etc. Being the “fat kid” in grade school gives me a bit of anxiety when the doctor says Isabelle is in the 75th percentile for weight and the 10th percentile for height. I don’t want her to have to struggle with her weight or how she sees herself or to be teased by kids and have her zest for life sapped from her.

This exercise with family thing is such a balancing act. If my husband and I want to have a good workout, then the kids have to ride. If we want the kids to get exercise, then we sacrifice our own fitness because of their pace. I’m happy about the changes we’re making to be healthy and fit, and I know that by building this foundation now, we’re setting ourselves up for an easier time of family exercise when the kids can keep up or ride bikes. Still, I worry. Too much.

And I know that if I don’t deal with the “fat kid” from my past, then I’ll be of no help to my daughter when she begins to face these issues. I don’t want to be indifferent about her activity levels, but I also don’t want to create an environment where she overreacts to the many changes her body will undergo. (We’re watching the current season of “The Biggest Loser,” and one of the contestants has a daughter who was starving herself because she didn’t want to be fat like her mom. Lord, help me, I don’t want to be there.)

Like I said before, it’s a mental game right now, and this is some of the baggage I’m carrying as we train. I’m hoping to throw off what hinders, as the apostle Paul says, so I can truly run free … literally and spiritually.