I Bet Grandma's Floors Never Looked Like Mine

I stood in my grimy-floored kitchen, washing dishes, feeding toddlers lunch, looking out the window, and thinking. I thought, How did my grandma (now 98 years old) manage? How did this mother of five boys and finally, a girl, wife to a traveling husband grow her own vegetables, can them, sew everyone's clothing, wash all the laundry, cook, clean, kneel by her bed in prayer, morning and night, and attend church every time the doors were opened . . . how?

I thought of my friend who homeschools her six children and teaches the girls know how to embroider and sew and knit and creates scrapbooks for her families and cans her own home-grown peaches and directs a choir and I thought, How?

Then I thought: Moms like that run a tight ship.

Their children have chores and rules and actually know how to scrub a toilet. Their children go to bed on time and read classic novels and put their laundry in hampers. Their children do not "back-sass," as my children would say. Their children eat homegrown vegetables and don't screw up their noses and make vomiting sounds when they find out they are having a well-balanced meal for dinner.

Then there is me. If those moms run a tight ship, then I'm the kind of mom who runs a . . . well, a wobbly dock. At best.

We don't sail the harbor, let alone the seven seas. My kids kind of perch on the shaky, splintery dock and watch the other ships sail. My kids sit on the edge of the rickety dock and try to touch the salty sea with their toes. My kids accidentally drop stuff into the water and pretend like they're going to shove each other into the waves below and complain "he won't stop touching me" and "the sun is shining into my eyes."

I don't run a tight ship.

I think it's probably in my nature to run a tight ship, though. I was a perfectionist in high school. If I did not make the highest A in the class on a test, I said the following spiral of things to myself: "I can't believe I missed an answer. I'm so dumb. I knew that answer. Why did I make that mistake? I know I will probably get a B in this class or I'll probably just fail because I'm so incredibly stupid and I'm fat anyway and my hair will not stop frizzing, no wonder no one likes me--well, sure they like me, but that's only because they have to like me and just wait. Just wait. I will probably fail this class and end up with such a low grade point average that I will not get a scholarship and I won't get into the college of my choice and I'll definitely never get married or have a meaningful career or kids and I may as well just go live under a bridge alone, of course. I'm so stupid. I may as well kill myself right now."

As you can see, my "self-talk" was fairly dismal. When I realized what I was doing to myself, I stopped. Not immediately, not without pain, but I stopped. I stopped being illogical and crazy and jumping to insane conclusions. And I stopped expecting myself to be Perfect because I realized that no one is Perfect (for awhile there, I thought Martha Stewart was, but hello? She's divorced--hardly a perfect story-book ending to a life--and she's going to prison.)

I call myself a Reformed Perfectionist, and I give myself permission to just let some things slide. Thus, my grimy kitchen floor. And the toilets which could use scrubbing and the kids who have not yet started piano lessons. I'm just not going to spend my life, my home-making years, pressuring myself to be Suzy Homemaker with a hollow head who smiles vacantly and never complains and hasn't read a novel in ten years since she left college. I'd rather my mind function with robust health than for my couch cushions to be spotless.

As for the kids, their childhoods are short. I know some moms feel like they need to rush, hurry, cram as much information into their kids as is possible before releasing them into the blue sky like a helium balloon. I'd rather just let them hang out and eat popcorn in the middle of the day and then swim under the clear blue sky with its sliver of moon and lowering sun. It's summertime still, for just a few short moments on this wobbly dock, and I say, "Who wants a popsicle?"