The Super and the Glue

Something that's been on my mind a lot lately is transition. Not the shockingly intense/freakishly painful phase of labor--just the normal type of transition where change comes. It feels like our family in the middle of a big transition between little kids and big kids. It's been almost a year since we bought diapers/pull-ups, and Amber is starting preschool this fall. (We are one year and 2 months away from kindergarten--woah. Jay only has one more year left in elementary school--double woah). I feel my own role and responsibilities as a mom shifting in response to my kids' growth. It's almost like a strange sort of mini-identity crisis! I keep thinking "now what!?"


This morning we were pulling out of our driveway when Jay and Rose realized that they forgot to do something (I totally forgot what it was--ugh). They told me "you forgot to remind us to____." I realized that I had not been there in the right room at the right moment to remind them to _____, and they noticed that they weren't as ready as they'd like to be. I told them it wasn't my FAULT that they weren't ready; it was their job to take care of themselves and my job to teach them how.

Then I turned to Jeff and said "a lot of the time I feel useless and ignored, but then something like this happens and I realize that I am more useful and important than I feel."

"You are the glue that holds us together," Jeff replied loyally. "We'd be lost without you."

It was a tiny moment in the long busy day, but it was a little gratifying and oddly consoling to have my entire family acknowledge real-time that I am a little more than useless and that I DO HELPFUL THINGS.

{A brief side note: Jeff is the "super" to my glue. He keeps me sane and laughing and calm and fills his role in a stellar--super--way, supporting our family financially, caring for us, and being generally awesome. None of these musings are meant to place myself above my spouse. We are a team. I love our team.} 

Usually what I do is all in the background and nobody appears to notice it--stocking the pantry, planning meals, wiping counters, sweeping the nasty basement stairs, cleaning up milk drips, sticking on bandaids, putting away books, reminding people to: eat, pee, sleep, change underwear, get ready in time, put socks on, buckle seat belts, wear bike helmets, be kind, etc. etc. etc. I should not mind that my job is unsung and background-- this is the type of job that suits me best! I hate the spotlight! And most of the time I don't even think about my behind the scenes efforts. I'm content.

Without any kind of acknowledgement tossed my way, and now that my kids are transitioning to the less-needy part of their childhood, however, it's easy to feel sidelined. Now my main job isn't keeping the kids alive and well, it's teaching them to keep themselves alive and well. As exhausting (and rewarding) as it is to be there for young needy messy emotional children, it is also a bit of a forlorn feeling to suddenly realize that my role is no longer life-giver as much as it is life-guider. Don't get me wrong, parenthood is not suddenly easy-breezy; it's just draining and rewarding in different ways than it used to be, just like my kids are needy, messy, and emotional in different ways than they used to be.

Over the past few months I have been struggling off and on with What To Do with myself moving forward. Not having babies anymore left a gap in my workload and usefulness-meter, and I have been spinning my wheels trying to figure out how I can feel fulfilled and productive as a human being now that I'm not pinned down with diapers and naptimes. I feel some worldly pressure to Do More and get started on a career, but I'm not convinced that I want to do that while my kids are living at home. It doesn't feel right for me or true to my basic personal parenting philosophy of BE THERE. It all goes back to being the glue of the family. If I try to add something as intense and stressful (to me) as furthering my schooling or beginning a career, I think my glue would shrivel crack and our home life would suffer. That is my honest assessment of my self and our family. (Side note: I totally recognize that what feels right and works for me and my family is not and should not be the same for everyone.)

Even though I feel good about staying home even with older kids, I still feel a nebulous undefined responsibility toward being productive in a get-a-job-contribute-and-earn-money kind of way, but I don't even know where that sense of obligation comes from. Even though I know I do lots of work as a stay-at-home parent, I still feel lazy at the prospect of staying home with less small-kid-related work. Realizing that my parenting role is changing is helping me work on adapting to my new role (caring for bigger kids) rather than trying to fill the holes left from my previous role (caring for younger kids) with responsibilities that will negatively affect my most important role of Being There for my kids and family.

Some of the best advice (life, parenting, etc.) that my mom ever gave me was these four words: everything is a phase. That applies not only to pregnancy nausea, sleepless babies, and stubborn toddlers, but also to my role in caring for my growing kids. As they learn, grow, and change, it makes sense that I am learning, growing, and changing right along with them--both as a parent and personally.

What exactly am I trying to say/discover/understand here? As my kids change, my role as mother changes, but those changes don't mean that I need to take on MORE. It is ok to take time to grow into this latest phase and continue figuring out how to adapt so I am still able to practice caring: self-care, childcare, home-care, and family care in this new territory. Our family still needs its glue.

Monday night Mancala. He won, best of three.