As many of you know, last year we had the opportunity to participate in a speaking tour called Time Out for Women. A lot of people assumed we were there to talk about our cookbooks or dinner or something, but we were actually there to talk about motherhood—the expectations we set for ourselves based on what we see on the internet and our own experiences as mothers, and also our experiences with our own moms. Since Mother’s Day is on Sunday, we wanted to share a little of what we talked about last year. This post is a little different than what we normally talk about around here; but we hope you take the time and enjoy the read, and share it with others if you feel so inclined.
If you spend any amount of time browsing the internet, you know what it takes to be an ideal wife and mother. If you read enough blogs or spend enough time browsing Pinterest, you’ll know that you need to…
*Prepare 3 healthy, homemade, preferably organic meals a day.
*You’ll need an elaborately simple system for folding and organizing your laundry.
*Due to a system of charts, your house will never be more than 10 minutes away from being company ready.
*You’ll properly display your family with their coordinating heights and ages in a vinyl decal on your minivan.
*You’ll send your daughters to school every day with a different hairdo, most of which involve mastering curling their hair with a flat iron and twisting elaborate shapes into her hair, fastened with giant bows and flowers that you have on a color-coded hair-bow organizer that you made yourself.
*You’ll never buy eggs from the store—if you’re a good mom, you’ll build your own chicken coop in the backyard and paint it a popular Benjamin Moore shade where your free-range chickens can happily lay their organic eggs.
*You’ll have professional portraits taken on a very regular basis. They should always be taken outdoors, either on abandoned rail-road tracks, in front of an abandoned burnt-down graffitied building that’s clearly unsafe for children, out in nature, but with items that don’t naturally occur in nature, like the big velvet couch that mysteriously appeared in the middle of a wheat field. Bonus points if you get at least one shot with your family holding hands while walking away from the camera.
*You’ll reupholster all your old furniture in funky, hard-to-find fabrics.
*Your kids clothes will be made from your husband’s old work shirts.
*At some point, you’ll consider redecorating your whole house with owls.
*You’ll definitely make all your own baby food because it’s just as easy as buying it at the store, and everyone knows that your babies will grow up with above-average intelligence and be better-looking in adulthood. Because of your homemade baby food.
*And finally, if you don’t simultaneously bargain shop AND shop at Anthropologie, you might as well not shop at all.
We might be guilty of a few of those things, but it’s easy to see how when we start looking around at what everyone else appears to be doing, we can start feeling a little inadequate. While the internet and social media are amazing sources of inspiration and creativity, they can sometimes serve simply as a reminder of everything we don’t have and aren’t able to accomplish, especially as mothers. Too often, they overemphasize the good and under-emphasize the bad. As we peruse the cyber-world, it’s easy to be left with the impression that everyone else is somehow able to accomplish so much more than we are.
We have seen this first-hand when people compare themselves to the very little part of us that appears on the Internet. Somehow, people have gotten the idea that ALL of the meals in our homes look like the ones we post here on the blog.
Our kids always get 27 pancakes with fresh berries on top, we garnish every individual serving, and we certainly serve all of our food on gorgeous plates with coordinating cloth table linens.
Yeah, not so much. At my house it’s often more a question of, “Hmm…what else could I possibly serve with ranch dressing today?”
And we may or may not be on a first name basis with the drive-through attendants at both Sonic and McDonald’s.
Here’s one of our favorites: a little something I like to call “The 400 Special.” It’s a great demonstration of the value I place on education and learning in the home. I send my three young boys to rummage through the freezer and assert their exceptional knowledge of both letters and numbers as they search for anything and everything they can find that says, “bake at 400” on the package.
And because I also value the nutritional content of our family meals, I sometimes put the dino nuggets on lettuce and call it a Crispy Chicken Salad.
The facade of parenting and motherhood faces the same issues on the internet. When you take a look at blogs and Facebook, you’d think that children are happy and smiling and that all babies lie nakedly wrapped in nets in fur-lined wooden bowls, like nature intended…
But you might not see as many little princesses transforming into evil queens…
Or little Picasos feeling a little too liberal with their definition of ‘artistic expression’
Or your Costco-sized bag of flour being turned into a playground for Bob the Builder and all his friends…
Or your special kitchen “helper” doing lots of “helping”…
Or the little chef “making pancakes” in a household item that in no way resembles an actual cooking item.
(Yes, that is in fact my vacuum.)
The fact is, motherhood is not all sunshine and rainbows. And life isn’t always bubbly, happy, color-coordinated, and pin-worthy.
Sara
The photo below is my Mother in 1979, holding me, her first daughter. I often look at this photo and think what an exciting time it must have been in her life. My parents had just built their first home, in a new city where my Dad would start a job he would excel at for the next 30+ years of life. She had 2 young children, and would give birth to 2 more in the coming years. Life was good.
But as hard as we try, we can’t always control every detail of our lives. My Mom’s life hit some bumpy paths and took unexpected turns. In her adult years she’s suffered from disease and brain injury that have disabled her over the years. My mom is a much different woman now than she was when I was a child and as the years go by, my memories of her in her full capacity are largely ones from my childhood. She started getting sick with a very progressive disease just as I was coming into adulthood. Knowing a parent when you’re a child yourself is much different than having a relationship with them when you’re an adult, and her life took a drastic turn right at that pivotal time in both of our lives. Today, she is mostly bound to a wheelchair and needs constant care and assistance with basic daily functions. Even now as I write this blog post, she’s in a hospital, hooked to tubes and pumps and needles. Her mind is as fragile as her body. Sometimes she recognizes who I am when I call and sometimes I have to remind her that I’m her daughter. That my name is Sara. That I live in Idaho and have three little boys.
I wonder all the time what life would be like had these circumstances been different. When I see girls my age out to lunch with their Moms at restaurants, or shopping at the mall together, it tugs on my heart a little bit. I wish I could know the woman she was years ago now that I’m an adult myself. I’m intrigued by that woman because I’m in her shoes now; I’m a mother. I’m raising a family and doing all of the things she did when I was young. I want to remember her like that, I want to know her like that. I want to ask her all about it and hear advice on how to do this mothering thing right. Now I pour over photographs and memorabilia about her life. And as I look back on those things and speak with people who have known her for many years, I realize what a smart, capable, and creative woman she was. When I was a child she was just doing grown-up stuff. She led complex organizations and planned huge events. She created ridiculously magical birthday parties for me and my siblings with amazing cakes- and I can’t help but think, how’d she do that? She didn’t even have Google, let alone Pinterest! The woman planned neighborhood parties, PTA Fundraisers, and sewed every Halloween costume I ever wore in my entire life. By the cyber-standards we measure motherhood today, she was a total rock-star of a Mom.
But here’s the thing. All of those things I just mentioned? That’s what I remember when I look back at photos. When in quiet moments I let my mind wander to the things engraved upon my heart, it’s a different set of memories entirely. I remember as clear as day how she’d let me pull up a chair and play “ice cream man” while she did the dishes. I remember her “letting” me match all of the socks in the laundry basket and making a game out of it. I remember the feeling of her hands as they rubbed my back when I was scared at night. I remember her talking to me and asking me about my day and my life when we’d drive around on endless errands. I remember her favorite meal of canned tomato soup and slightly burned grilled cheese because she always sat down with me for lunch when we’d have that. What I remember, what I treasure, are moments stemming from the most mundane moments of motherly duties: laundry, errands, bed time. What I know now, that I didn’t know then and I don’t think she knew either, was that it was in those simple moments that she taught me how to be a mother. If there is one thing I could express to her now, and have her truly understand; it’s how grateful I am for that. For those moments that so perfectly, and unexpectedly, prepared me to be a Mom.
From my own circumstances, I feel grateful to have a little bit of an enlightened view of what’s important as a child. When the moments of my life come where I’m flooded with thoughts of self-doubt or inadequacy because I’m most certainly not hand-sewing all of my kids clothes, raising chickens, or planning a perfectly color coordinated birthday party, I take a deep breath and I think of those little moments with my Mom. Those memories are a constant internal reminder. Those memories teach me to calm down, slow down, to listen to my kids, to play with my kids, to do whatever it takes to show them in every way possible that they are loved beyond measure. In the end I think the truth is spoken in one of my favorite quotes:
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. -Robert Brault
Kate
My own mom died when I was 9 and there were so many times throughout the years when I wished that she was there, first to see the things that I was doing and then, as I became older (and especially after I became a mom), I wanted her advice, I wanted to know what I was like when I was little, if my kids were like me or if they were just weird (or if those two things aren’t mutually exclusive). Because I was so young when she died, I had a very limited, childlike recollection of who she was and I longed to know her better in a way that my older brother and sisters did.
When my oldest son was about 6 months old, I was going through a rough time adjusting to being a mom for the first time. I didn’t know if the cycle of diapers and naps and feedings and naps and diapers would ever end. Every day looked exactly like the one before it and I was kind of feeling insignificant, like what I was doing didn’t matter.
One day, I opened up my front door and there was a package from my oldest sister. I opened it up and it was every single letter my mom sent my sister when she was serving an 18-month mission for our church years and years before. I spent the next few days reading it, laughing and crying, reading about our family’s highs and lows, realizing that my mom and I write the same and think the same things are funny, getting to know her as a person, hearing my mom’s hopes and fears as a mother echoed in my own hopes and fears as a mother, understanding how she felt about me when I was little. Although it was a weekly task, probably something she sometimes viewed as a chore and solely for the benefit of my oldest sister, something she viewed as small and insignificant has become a great comfort and a blessing to me, and I’m grateful for that.
You guys, stop comparing yourselves to everyone around you and the big, fat half-truth that is the Internet. Celebrate your strengths and try not to worry too much about the ways you feel inadequate to others. If you’re a mom, remember that motherhood is messy and sticky and dirty and sometimes just flat-out hard and heart-breaking, but it’s also beautiful and fulfilling and full of tiny moments that end up being the ones we hold closest to our hearts.
We wish women everywhere, both young and old, with or without children, a beautiful and blessed Mother’s Day!
Questions & Reviews
Sara… Your mom is my generation. I had MY first child in 1979…. Those photos remind me of raising my 4 children…. Best years of my life. And things WERE simpler then. My friends and neighbors were my support system. We spoke face to face every day. God bless your mom!
Thank you for your lovely blog. You touched a lot of women’s hearts.
Wow. I happened to find your blog by accident but after reading it, I too cried and laughed at your experiences as a mom. I was so very fortunate to have my mom with me until her 83 year. And fortunate too to be able to care for her the last nine years of her life. She was a single mother from about the time me and my is sister were in high school. All the wonderful things she taught us, she did without preaching but by example. Like how to pay your bills on time and to treat others with respect and dignity. When I see or learn of a single mom trying to work and raise her children my heart goes out to her and I recall my mom, the most wonderful mother in the world. Even though I’m now 77, I still recall the wonderful things our mother did for us that did not involve money or material things. So thank you Sara and Kate for sharing.
My own mother died, unexpectedly, just a few days after this post. I’ve been feeling really sorry for myself again lately that she left me when I was married for only a few months and that I had moved closer to her only a few weeks before she died. It stings. It frustrates me. She should be here, and what will I ever do if I have kids and she’s not here? She was my best friend. I am reminded daily on Facebook (I know, that’s the way Facebook is) that other mothers are with their daughters, taking them shopping, taking them to lunch, laughing on the phone, and being there for them… and mine isn’t. I know, it’s not the best attitude to have, but it is what it is. I never claimed to be a mature 31 year old in some respects. 😉 Anyway, I stumbled on this and it helped me a lot. We don’t always get what we plan for in life, including having a mom around, but a blessing in itself is to have mothers we love and miss so much. Happy Mother’s Day to y’all, in a few short weeks.
Today I realized I hadn’t looked at your website in a while and I was in search of new recipes. I have yet to look at one recipe as I’ve read your inspirational stories. Precisely what I must have needed today. I relate so much to both of your stories, I’m in tears. I had a rockstar mom, who did her best to raise her kids, but then she died when I was 25. So many times I’ve felt I just needed my mom to talk through this whole motherhood thing, to ask if I did that as a child, to ask how to raise twins like she did when I just feel crazy. I miss her when I see other moms/ grandmas with their daughters/granddaughters. Although I know I’m not alone in my plight, it’s nice to hear I’m not alone. I’m sorry that you don’t have your moms to help through this part of life, at least not in body, but you guys are amazing. Thanks for inspiring me today.
Thank you for this post. The first part made me laugh so hard I was doubled over; the second part had me in tears. I guess today I needed a little bit of both, because I feel much better and stronger for having read it. *hugs* to you both.
thank you for this. i just spent the last 20 minutes reading this post & crying. your insight into motherhood is wise beyond your years & thank you for sharing. i laughed out loud at the dino salad… it’s totally something i would do. love you both!
Thank you so much! Very touching and helpful. Right up there with my other go-to motherhood pick-me-up: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-06-13-motherhood-an-eternal-partnership-with-god?lang=eng
I don’t know how I ever missed this post but freak. I love you guys. Event Though I might have said I hate you in a previous post
Lol, love you back girlie 😉
This is a really great post. Really great. I don’t have kids, but I just got married, and I’m in medical school, and I read WAY too many things on the internet. And I already worry that I won’t be a good enough mom. I feel pretty certain that I can’t ever be as good as my mom was, but also certain that I didn’t set myself up to be the type of mom the internet tells me today’s moms should be. I’m pretty sure I won’t have time to make homemade baby food during residency. I really hope I can remember all of this when the time comes. Thank you.
I bawled like a baby after reading and felt compelled to say thank you for sharing such a well-written and poignant post – clearing from a place of love and respect. I will now share it with as many others as I can 🙂
Hi. I have just found your blog today (the cream cheese frosting recipe – can I just say ‘Yum!’), but then I clicked on this post. It spoke to me, as hard as I try not to, I compare myself to those ‘perfect’ Moms in blog land. But you are so right – it is the little things and the being there that are important. Thank you, really, thank you.
Also the pictures of your moms are just beautiful. How you must treasure them.
I came on your website for a recipe and saw the “Must Read on Motherhood” link in your sidebar. As the mother of a 7, 4, and 6-month old, I was curious and clicked. Thank you. I laughed and cried, because all of it is so true. Thank you for your humor. Thank you for sharing your stories in such a vulnerable and beautiful way. Thank you for reminding me that it’s often the unphotographed, unplanned moments of connection with our kids that make the greatest impact. I needed to hear this today. God bless you and your families.
I read this post last year and I thought it was so touching and profound. I forwarded the link to my 6 sisters who had kids of their own because I thought it was important for them to read it. I was unmarried, no kids, no mortgage, and basically carefree. Now a year later, I’m married, 7-months pregnant with my first child, and just paid our first mortgage payment on our new house. Re-reading this post reminded me that it’s not important to set up the Pinterest worthy nursery or keep the house spotless all the time. Thanks ladies. I’ll be sure to read this post again next year as a reminder.
Not sure how I stumbled upon this post tonight, but I’m so glad I did. After a special kind of craptastic night that began with me actually cooking dinner and concluded with me wallowing in my own tears as I took in the heaps of messes all around me, I really really needed some perspective.
What a beautiful and encouraging post. Thank you!
LOVED this post. Thank you for being so honest and sharing the hilarious real photos and also the touching stories about your moms. I wish you both happiness and success, and I can’t wait to try one of your recipes.
Thank you for such a beautiful, heart-felt post which brought me to tears. It is very brave to share such intimate thoughts and feelings with so many people, and I thank you both for being willing to do so in order to uplift all of us mothers who sometimes feel “less than.” What touching words.
THANK YOU!! I needed this for so many reasons. One, for missing my mom who died before i married and started my own family, aching to ask her advice and countless questions and yearning for the friend I would find in her as an adult. Two for turning to the Internet for resources, inspiration, “how to guides” and a lousy substitute for my mom. The end result feeling like a complete failure. Thank you for helping me to heal my mind. It’s the start of my new path to mother with my heart!
Thank you for the thoughts on your own mothers. My own mother’s health declined very rapidly as soon as I entered adulthood. She is also confined to a wheelchair and needs constant care in every aspect. We have come very close to losing her several times and we feel blessed to have her. I fully understand how it tugs at the heart to watch others do the fun things with their moms that I will never do, and to see children playing with their grandmothers in a way my children will never know. It is hard to lose a mother that you still have. To know that my children will never really know her the way I did. I also cherish the letters I received from my mother. She wrote weekly to my brother and sister who were serving missions (pre-email days) while I was in China teaching English. She emailed me every week, but still mailed me those letters just because I wanted them. Thanks for a wonderful reminder about the preciousness of motherhood, and everything that goes along with it!! {I had to compose myself when my plumber called just now!}
Sara and Kate,
Thanks so much for the gift of “remembering” mothers. I was cleaning my bookmarks today and discovered this post through a recipe I saved. Having lost my mother in my 20s (now in my 60s), it is always sweet to remember. She was the glue that held my family of 10 children together. We shall always remember her gifts that last through our lifetime. Thanks at the this time of year, not just at Mother’s Day.
Donna
Love this post. Love the vintage pictures. Love the eggs in the vacuum.
Thank you for a beautiful, honest and sincere post. One from the heart, truly. I am left a little perplexed however. Your blog, as so many others out there, is contributing daily to that “oh-so-picture-perfect-super-mom-with-perfect-family-managing-skills” syndrome/phenomena that you are yourself denouncing here above… I absolutely loved your “real life” pictures & anecdotes and i wondered, reading it all, why we can’t we show/see more of those everyday? Why can’t we find a balance out there on the web…? Why do we only show what is pretty and perfect? Most of all, why do we even care or need everything to be so perfect & cute? I have nothing against wanting to set goals for one’s self and pursuing them through endeavours which strive for aesthetic & artistic expression (such as the content you have in your blog) but went we always present only one side, daily, regularly, well, that’s not real, nor balanced… When you say that “motherhood is messy and sticky and dirty and sometimes just flat-out hard and heart-breaking”, we don’t read THAT regularly. But we are fed on the other hand gazillions of pictures of our “oh-so-perfect” brownies and this & that. So please, let’s not blame women out there who are getting depressed/suppressed/angry/discouraged, etc. with the “oh-so-perfect” Internet content when we are feeding them/us exactly that which feeds those emotions in the first place. All i can say is that i had MORE fun reading the “real” stuff in your blog because THAT’s the stuff I CAN RELATE TO, those things are for real, those things made me laugh & cry. Who cares about perfect cheese soufflés?!?!? I couldn’t agree more with a comment from EMILY when she says “i think a “reality” post should be a weekly or monthly event”… I say it should be there everyday, a hint of it at least. Maybe less women would be pissed with the Internet content. Thank you for the very very thought-provoking post.
The pictures and quote “find anything at 400” are priceless 🙂
The equivalent at my house is serving a can of salmon that looks (and smells) like cat food.
The tomato soup and grilled cheese was my mom’s favorite too – you brought tears to my eyes. You are so lucky to be able to see clearly what matters.
Thank you for this wonderfully honest post! I think a “reality” post should be a weekly or monthly event! 🙂
<3 Thanks!
I just read this post this morning. I know it’s not mothers day – but oh how I needed to hear this post. Thank you both for sharing a bit of your heart – and teaching me what real motherhood is about. I have 7 children (2 of which we adopted from Ghana this past year) and my life has become a whirlwind – mostly of guilt feeling I’m not thriving as a mother. But this was exactly what I needed this morning. Thanks again – to both of you – I’m so grateful! xo
I couldn’t have read this at a better time. It’s very hard for me not to get caught up in trying to be the perfect mom in such a materialistic type of way. This made me feel so much better about my life as a new mama. Thank you
Ox
I am a new reader to your blog, and I was trying out some if your spa treatments when I noticed this post. Thank you for sharing. I am a working mother with 6 children of a combined family. I find it so difficult not to feel guilty about what ridiculously strange expectations I create in my mind about what I should be doing because of the Internet. I also have a wonderful mother, and I hope and pray I can be like her someday . I am sorry for your losses and the hard times you are going through . You are both wonderful
I loved reading this. I need reads like this to bring me back to being a “mom”. I sometimes get so wrapped up in EVERYTHING else and every other role that I have in life that I get stressed and I become impatient with the little trying things of my boys. I have 2 sons, both going through very “testy” stages, they’re pushing limits, seeing what they can get away with, testing my consistency of discipline (lol) that when reading this. I’ve realized that I don’t take enough time to be rid of all my other roles just to be their MOM. I’m so worried about having all the stupid food groups in our dinner which I need to have ready BEFORE 6pm AT LEAST ( I work mon-fri 8:30-4:30…right?) I’m quickly moving around the kitchen, refusing them to help “stir” or “pour” because I just want to hurry up and get it done, i’m trying to be a good daughter/sister/friend to people calling and wanting to chat, ignoring the kids as they say “mom look at this, mom look!” as I crabbily tell them “I’m on the phone! Remember to wait your turn!” talking and stirring supper, washing a spoon or whatever utensils for supper, grabbing together a load of laundry to throw in, by the time suppers ready, I’ve plated their dishes (cut it all up etc), trying to HAPPILY encourage them to eat, trying to eat my own plate while i’m still up and down from the table doing WHATEVER else that needs to be done, bathing the kids (hurriedly again I might add), pj’ing them, and then settling them with a cartoon or movie just so that I can now have a shower, answer more phone calls, stress over bills, tuck the kids into bed, stress over work and what needs to be done tomorrow, more bills and money stress, try and get in some nice conversation with my boyfriend (possibly some cuddling while watching tv) then go to bed and the chaos starts all over again then next day!….I love reading about how things USED to be for Mother’s and you’re absolutely right, they were/are total rockstar moms…my mother was a stay at home mother and did all the things you talk about your mother doing and I remember having SO MUCH PATIENCE and TIME for us (there were 4 of us) and I only have TWO and I feel sooo inadequate as their mom! Times have changed so much and I feel sad that for some memories of moms are changing too…if it was financially possible to be a stay at home mom in todays world…I would in a heart beat.
Wow. Just, wow. So beautiful.
Really can’t thank you ladies enough for this sweet post. First, I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants as I read through your list of what (according to the all-knowing Internet) it takes to be a mom. Then, I cried as I read everything else. I am a stay-at-home mom to three beautiful girls–4, 3 and 1–and I so needed to hear all of this. Some days are so, so good, and others are just…well, not. It can be so very challenging to look around you and feel like you just don’t measure up to anyone, and especially not to what you always hoped you would be like. What a nice reminder to just be who you are and do your best! Thanks for sharing this. I think you guys are awesome, egg-vacuum and all, and I love your blog, cookbooks, and your amazing personalities that shine through both.