Spoiler: If you do not yet have children please do not read this post. You will find it disconcerting and me jaded. Simply enjoy your youth and time to do whatever you please! When you’ve had kids for at least a year, let’s talk.

Now that it’s just us moms, I ask: Does anyone else suffer from “Cinderella Complex?” I cook, I clean, I carpool, I do laundry for hours on end, I grocery shop, I make lunches, I shuttle to and fro endless appointments and activities. Then I collapse, sleep for a few hours, and start over again the next day. It is a relentless treadmill and there is certainly no end in sight.

No end.

Of course, there is no ugly stepmother or hideous stepsisters. But, I nonetheless feel I am constantly catering to others’ every whim. And no, my kids are not spoiled brats. They say thank you and please and “you are the best mom ever”. They do. The hubs is appreciative too. I am not complaining about them. They are darling. This is my issue, not theirs.

And I realize it is simply the nature of the job. The job description for “full-time mom” clearly mentions: enormous amounts of laundry, mind-numbing errands, cleaning closets and floors and under beds, planning birthday parties and classroom parties and winter (very PC) parties, wiping bottoms and noses, cleaning up vomit, making lunches, and breakfasts, and dinners, and snacks (oh, the snacks alone!).

There is simply no way to understand the job description without living it. I have many friends who stayed with the high-powered career and simply do not understand (and on a few occasions have had the nerve to ask) what I do all day. I truly wish I could make it sound glamorous — lunches, parties, champagne and pretty dresses.

But it’s not.

It can be lonely and depressing. So much of mothering is done in isolation (or at least without adult companionship). So many hours are spent on work no one notices or that which is completely obliterated within minutes of their return.

Just like Cinderella, I do all the hard work so everyone else can look pretty and put together and our “family life” looks enviable. They put on the clean clothes, eat their healthy breakfast, take the lovingly packed lunch and go off to the ball.

I realize I too have an invitation to the ball. No one forces this life upon me. I am blessed *blessed* to be able to stay at home and be available to my children and community organizations. I simply am at the point where I need to add a little sparkle to this life — whether it is a new hobby, more date nights or regularly-scheduled time away — so I can indeed live . . .

Happily ever after.

I was adopted over 49 years ago.  My parents got divorced before I started elementary school, and my dad dropped out of my life.  So it was just mom and I.

I started having children over 20 years ago.  When my husband and I first started having kids, I assumed we would adopt a couple.  Just seemed right.  However, reality intervened and after three kids in less than four years, we decided our life and our family was full.  It was the right decision for us.

Over the course of the years, when someone learned I was adopted, the question of finding my birth mother would always come up.  I would always reply, with a bit of sarcasm in my voice, “I’ve got one mother that drives me nuts, why would I want two?”

But after having kids, I must admit that sometimes when all was quiet in the house (not that often) I would sometimes ask myself, “If I hadn’t carried those babies in my belly and screamed for hours during childbirth, would I feel something less, something different, than I feel now?

I didn’t have the answer right away.  I was too wrapped up in taking care of those three busy, busy children. But now those tiny babies are young adults, and I’ve lived on both sides of the nature vs. nurture concept.  And I have my personal opinion.

They are not my children because I carried them around for nine months and gave birth to them.  They’re my children because I sat in a hot shower with them when they had croup.  Because I ran red lights to take my son to the hospital when he broke both bones in his arm.  Because I sat in the bleachers about a million times until my butt was numb watching my daughter do gymnastics.  Because I went to every parent/teacher conference.  Because I know my youngest son needs me to be around, in the background, while he pretends he’s grown up. Because I can’t go to sleep until they’re all home.

And my adoptive mother is my only mother precisely because she did the same kinds of things with me, and continues to do the mom thing (much to my dismay, sometimes) to this day, 49 years later.

I completely respect the needs of other adoptees to find answers.  And I know am beyond lucky. I simply don’t have any questions.  When it comes to parenting, I am a daughter, I am a mother.  No more, no less.

On Wednesday, my  son is going to turn 20. He’s going to be the same age that I was when I had him.

He seems so young.

Was I that young? I think I was younger.

I was a 19-year-old college sophomore at a tiny Lutheran liberal arts college in Minnesota, getting ready for her semester abroad (at Trinity College, Dublin). I was going to graduate and go straight to graduate school for creative writing or open up a bookstore.  I was going to be like Dorothy Parker, except not such a drunk, and better with my money. I was going to do something amazing with words.

And then a night with too much Southern Comfort and a sweet boy from Texas changed all that.

Want to feel like a pariah? Get pregnant at a Lutheran liberal arts college.  Really, I’d say to people, you can’t become pregnant just by talking to me. I am not the Typhoid Mary of knocked-up-ed-ness.

Insert plucky pregnant girl story here.

And then add 5 years of full-time jobs plus full-time school plus cute kid with yellow duck fuzz for hair, then subtract a kind, but immature husband.

It sucked. It was wonderful. Thank my lucky stars I got a good kid.

Fast-forward 11 more years, when 16-year-old Rubin said, I know your worst fear, mom. Your worst fear is that I’m going get some girl pregnant.

And I said, No, my worst fear is that you’re going to get some girl pregnant, and since I’m only 36, Brian and I will become pregnant, and then your girlfriend and I will walk around the mall with massive bellies and people will look at us.

That is still my worst fear.

I’m in that place where not getting my period means that I’m either pregnant or going through menopause, and I’m not sure which one scares me more.

And even though I didn’t get an abortion at 20, I’d get one now. After much thought and consideration, my vagina is a one-way-street.

It’d break my heart to have an abortion. So Brian and I are just very, very careful.

I was motivated to be a good mother at 20. At 40, I’d leave the dogs in charge. Can a pit bull change a diaper? Let’s find out.

What is that quality that 20-year-old mothers have?

Is it hope?  Stamina?  Knowing just enough about the world, but not too much? I don’t know.

I don’t have it anymore, whatever it is.  But if you’re reading this, and you’re raising a little kid, and it’s hard sometimes but you’re bringing it anyway, my hat goes off to you. You are awesomeness. You are bringing something great to this world.

Happy Birthday, Rubin

I like this picture, because it captures his easy smile and big heart.  Also it was a super-sunny day, so our living room looks like heaven with all those Jesus rays.  And Olive is in mid-lick, which cracks us up. That dog is always mid-lick.

Rubin is in his second year of college. He’s applying to transfer to a college out east, to join a pre-med program. That little bit of serendipity is going to be a doctor. As long as he stays away from Southern Comfort and pretty girls.