Moms: Do You Ever Feel Under-Appreciated?

I’m sure I’m not the only mother alive who has fantasized about just chucking it all and walking away, starting a new life in a new town.

Remember that Anne Tyler book (I think it’s Ladder of Years) in which a middle-aged mom actually does it. She just walks into a new town and buys herself some pretty new dresses, rents an apartment, gets herself a job and carries on a new life.

I read this book before I had kids and the whole time, I’m hoping against hope that the kids and her husband never find her, that she never has to return to her old life filled with dirty socks and sarcastic remarks.

Fast forward about 12 years: I’m married to my best friend, and I have three kids who treat me with respect. They put on their own shoes, buckle their own seatbelts, clear their own plates from the dinner table and occasionally even make their beds without being asked – so I recognize that I have no right to complain.

Still, I know I’m not alone. I know that there are otherwise happy mothers out there who sometimes, just every so often, feel a little bit trapped and a little bit sad and who feel that they left something behind somewhere along the way to where they are now. But we don’t know what it looks like, and we don’t know where we lost it. So we go along and, some days, we look at the pavement a lot.

I guess it’s best described as a longing. Sometimes we long to be looked at, and sometimes we long to be really listened to, sometimes we long to be appreciated, and sometimes we long to be worried about, rather than the one who does all the worrying.

The hardest thing for me about being a mother of three these days is the day-to-day reality of my life and the fact that it’s a whole lot harder than it used to be to make changes in my everyday life. I have to weigh everyone’s wants and needs against my own.

Sometimes it’s easier for me when I’m in a crisis because then I’m focused on something or someone besides myself. My type A sensibilities have something to do. But crisis or not, it’s here, day to day. It gets very noisy and ridiculously loud here in my life, and I have to sink in and somehow love the little things or I just might lose my mind. I have to somehow find a way to enjoy picking up all the junk that’s all over the place.

Today, I have to allow myself to sit down on the floor and play pirates. I have to do this. I know I have to do this because I had to do it yesterday and the day before that. And I look at my son and he loves it, and so I do it. And since I’m going to have to do it, I’m going to need to figure out a way to enjoy it.

Thinking about all this, I started fantasizing about what I would do if it were different. Where would I go?

I think about living in a very chic apartment in the city. I am wearing winter white and a pair of designer boots (which designer I don’t know because I don’t even know the names of any designers anymore.)

And then of course I think about the loneliness and I think about how my salvation would be all my chic friends who come to see me at all hours of the day and night. Thank God for all those friends, I would say, who care for me and whom I take care of.

Then I think about the fact that maybe our salvation comes to us dressed like each other, whether it’s a pair of designer boots or a pirate costume. Maybe our salvation lies in caring deeply for someone, in sharing a deep and abiding and committed love for someone, whether it’s through picking up their damn dirty socks or filling their Sippee cups (again) or finding the car keys or driving to T-ball or just sending them nice thoughts silently when they are crying and there really aren’t any words at all that will help.

And when we get scared or start feeling kind of depressed or desperate or angry, maybe we can just be kind to ourselves and start by blessing ourselves and other people with some nice thoughts.

Maybe we don’t have to be Mother Theresa about it. Maybe we’re already doing enough just because we are here, holding a little person and doing the best we can, spreading peace and kindness and joy in our living rooms and making it a nice place to stay for a bit.