Being Enough

A few friends and I met this morning to catch up on life and drink tasty, hot beverages. We end up, at each meeting, lamenting that we can't be quite enough for our families.

Did our mothers ever feel like they weren't enough?

I don't remember my mom crying all the time over cold coffee and sobbing into the phone to a friend about not being enough. To tell the truth, even if she wanted to, there was always so much going on in the house that catastrophe would have struck if she stopped long enough to worry about being enough. (By the way, my mother is an amazing woman!)

My friends and I now feel like we have to have a perfectly clean house, perfectly clean and well-behaved children, fabulous dinners, fabulous yard, give back to the community, serve at church, look hot for our Mr., keep the job/business going well, eat organic and homemade foods, manage all the loose ends of the house, do or supervise every dang household chore there is, pay the bills, remember trash day and school events and homework and whether or not someone is wearing her retainer, know where the retainer is, help find the case for the retainer, remind someone to clean the retainer, crank the retainer... (Can you tell we're in the middle of orthodontic work?)

On top of that, we're told to take bubble baths to relax (who really has time?), enjoy a hobby, take time to breathe, do what rejuvenates us.

When?

When am I supposed to do that?

Maybe when I tune out what everyone else says I need to do or be, and focus on what's best for us and our family and what God wants us to do.

Because of running a business, I don't get to make fabulous, homemade meals every night even though I enjoy cooking. We have wonderful family dinner times around food that was made in a hurry.

And that's okay. I am enough in that moment. My presence and attention to my family is more important than fabulous food.

Mom has a poem framed which says, "Cleaning and scrubbing Can wait for tomorrow, For babies grow up, We've learned to our sorrow. So quiet down, cobwebs, Dust, go to sleep, I'm rocking my baby, And babies don't keep."

Yes, my friend, you and I as mothers are enough for our families. Maybe we'll fail our lofty expectations--or society's expectations--and we won't be perfect. Well, nobody is! So let's embrace the noise and chaos of mothering, stop beating ourselves up, tune out the Facebook highlight reel, and just enjoy our children and husbands.

Yes, we are enough!