It’s Friday, blessed Friday. I survived the week. I survived the holiday. The dreaded holiday where you celebrate the fact you are in a relationship and pretend that it doesn’t bother you when you aren’t.
Valentine’s day. The day you realize with ever increasing pressure that you are alone. You are confronted, with couples. Personally, I don’t care about any of that. What I was confronted with, what this mom may have cracked under, was the pressure. The pressure of being Mom.
I get it. We are all trying to do everything we possibly can for our children. We want our children to be the best, have the best, did I mention be the best? We all want that. However it’s gone to an extreme. We’re micro-managing our children to the point that college graduates are actually taking their parents along on job interviews (true story!)
I want the very best for my girls, but I’m a firm believer that they are going to get everything they need but not necessarily everything they want. V-day is no exception.
First off, they each came home with at what seems like a five pound bag of candy. Seriously? Parents, really? Shaking my head. What happened to common sense? Oh right, there’s nothing common about it. There is nothing common about sense. SIGH!! It gets better.
I’m feeling like the all-time winner of the “Worst Mom of the Year” award. Those mom’s. I need to stress, I’m not angry at those mom’s. I’m jealous. There were the emails going back and forth between the parents – “I’m making cupcakes – I’m making cookies” that’s great. Then, the girls came home, so incredibly excited about their Valentine’s Day party. I’m thrilled. I was thrilled, until I see what they brought home. Sigh.
Not only did those Mom’s bake these home-made goodies for my girls to feast upon, there was the rest of it. SIGH. These are the mom’s I’m competing against. Those mom’s. I’m not one of those Mom’s. The “artsy craftsy” type moms. Sigh.
Not only was there “home-made” treats, there were crafty type cards. To make it even worse, at least in my mind, there were the bags of handmade and store bought goodies. Crap. Mine gave pencils. Yes, my daughters are officially the geeks of the class. Sigh.
Well, all I can say – you’re child might be on the honor roll, but mine will have common sense.
Check, and mate.
I’m a pretty practical person, so I would have loved the pencils. There’s always a lot of pressure when we look over the fence to see what other moms are doing. I do this a lot. My solution: avoid humanity. Yeah, that doesn’t work very well. Still trying to convince myself to be okay with what I can manage in a day, but I always fall short of those around me. C’est la vie. Now, if only I could really mean that c’est la vie. Ha!
I wish I could mean that as well. I know it’s NOT a competition, but it’s a competition. It’s a fine line between giving them everything they need verses want; and ensuring that they don’t miss out on everything they need by not having everything they want. If that makes any sense in this cold-befuddled brain. SIGH.