Want to know how a mom is REALLY holding up? It’s all in the socks. Well, at least for me it’s the socks. For others it could be some other obscure detail that most people wouldn’t notice.
When my kids were younger (maybe 1 and 4?) a friend asked me why I always wore white socks. She thought I should mix it up a little. She probably wasn’t even 100% serious, but it really hit home, because the before-kids me was actually sock-obsessed. I used to have a drawer overflowing with different kinds of crazy socks. I’d get pairs and pairs of fun socks every Christmas, and when friends or family would travel, the thing they’d bring back for me was socks. That was a part of who I was, one of the many parts of me that I had to put aside for awhile when my kids were born.
What really bothered me about this interaction was not that she cared about my socks or even that I had to give them up, but that she had inadvertently discovered a small crack in my veneer. Every day, I was trying so hard to convince myself and everyone around me that I had it all together.
I was a single working mom with a 1 and a 4 year old, and I was handling it. I was strong. I was Wonder Woman. Yes, that morning I had dealt with poop and vomit and tripped over toys on the floor, and there were piles of unfolded laundry everywhere, but I walked out that door with my hair dried, my makeup done, and my outfit put together…well not quite, because under my boots, instead of my normal fun socks, I wore white ones. The fun ones had gotten lost probably 20 laundry loads ago (or maybe 4 years), and I didn’t have time to think about them anyway. I was, quite frankly, happy to find a pair of socks in the laundry that matched at all!
I was convincing myself of the illusion, but she noticed the crack, and in that single moment, I had to admit to myself that I didn’t, in fact, have it all together much of the time. Sometimes, I was quite a mess, in fact. And you know what? My kids are now 4 and 7, and I still fly by the seat of my pants. There are still unfolded loads of laundry around my house, and there are days that I literally fall into bed. I am not what anyone would call a Pinterest mom and I’m certainly not one of those PTO moms that shows up to the kids’ school perfectly coiffed at 7am and somehow finds twenty extra hours in the day to organize the school Fall festival or bake sale. I barely have time to make sure that I and my kids get to school with clothes on. Case in point – here are my socks today:
For parents, the world has suddenly changed from one in which our biggest decision is which socks to wear (or maybe it’s earrings or which tie), to one where we can barely find those socks, or earrings, or ties. And what’s more, we don’t have the mental energy to care about it.
We spend all of our spare energy worrying about whether our kids are progressing as they should, making sure we have the right clothes for them for Red Day, changing diapers, cooking meals that we hope they might at least try. Somewhere in there, parts of us get lost. This is not a complaint, but a choice we make, and I think most of us would agree that it’s a choice that is worth it. While there are ups and downs in the parenting journey, watching those little buggers grow up is beyond rewarding and fun.
So let’s change everything. Let’s say, “Parents! It’s ok if you don’t have it all together!” How about we celebrate those moms and dads that show up to work with spit-up on their shirts or who didn’t have time to get a haircut because they chose to take their kids to soccer or gymnastics practice instead? We should recognize that messy shirts and uncut hair, untweezed eyebrows, and yes, white (or even unmatched!) socks, are all badges of honor, not something to be hidden. And we have to recognize that just because we can’t do everything perfectly doesn’t mean that we’re doing a bad job at life. It means that we’re focusing on doing a the best possible job we can at one particular and very important part of life.
PTO moms, I appreciate you. You make school a better place for our kids. Pinterest moms, I steal ideas from you all the time, and some of them even work! But we need to shift from thinking that most parents are accomplishing those things to thinking that most parents don’t. Most of us are simply holding it together, trying to enjoy these fleeting moments before our kids are suddenly grown and gone.
So here’s what I think we should all vow to make the new norm:
- We should drop our kids off at school in our pajamas and with our hair sticking up, because we chose a few minutes of self-pampering meditation instead of trying to look good for the drop-off line.
- We should forgive ourselves for feeding our kids chicken nuggets when that’s all they’ll eat, and have a little party in our heads when they finally eat that bite of something new.
- We should applaud ourselves for being able to come up with that crazy costume for storybook day when our kids only told us about it the day before.
- We should post more pictures of the tantrum faces on our kids, and the messy kitchens after they “helped” with the cooking, rather than the perfect angel smiles that we like to pretend are the norm.
- We should ask for help when we need it, instead of making our employers and our friends thing that women who don’t need help are the norm.
- We should choose to play with our kids and enjoy them while we can instead of matching those fun socks.
- And finally, we should believe that, as parents, we are all Supermen and Wonder Women, just because we managed to make our kids feel loved and supported that day while juggling everything else.
In fact, this year, my costume for Halloween was exactly that: a normal mom:
Someday, I will go back to wearing my cute and funny socks. I have a pair that my mom recently bought me, waiting in my drawer for a future time. For now, though, I wear my white socks as my badge of honor.
What is your badge of honor as a parent? Share in the comments section below!
