Let's be honest, raising kids is no walk in the park. We spend years dreaming about prince charming, the white picket fence and the slue of cute kids running around perfectly dressed, well behaved making our lives.....well PERFECT. No classes are offered to teach us how to manage our sudden life transformation, no friends or family sit you down and explain the "true Reality" of poopy diapers, dirty faces, bad manners, utter chaos, and loss of personal freedoms. We are thrown into parenthood with no warning, no training and the attitude of "We did it and survived, you will too." To make matters worse, we have society and all those before us preaching "seize the moment, enjoy them while you can, count your blessings, find the joy;" only to leave us feeling inadequate,confused and alone when this concept of "JOY" can't quite be figured out?
Find the JOY....What does this mean? What is "real" joy? Even I have written about the immense amount of "joy" I have experienced as the mother of four small children, but I have equally experienced immense anger and great frustration. I have thought the thoughts we all hold captive, quietly wondering if we are going crazy or just not fit for motherhood. And I have made my fair share of mistakes, if I haven't paid for already, I am sure I will pay for sometime in the future.
You see I believe "joy", as society has defined it, is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, that promises happiness if we get to it, but somehow is always just beyond our reach. It is the fairy-tail with the happy ending, the perfect American family,it is what many mothers have spent hours thinking they should have, and wondering where they can get it.
For the sake of all the mothers out there searching for the key to this mysterious secret, I don't think you have to go far or look long. It's not something you can head over to Target and buy, but I believe it exists right where you are, in all that you do. It's a gift, and the most difficult part of unwrapping it will be accepting the simplicity of what's inside. This looks very different for each of us, and we must remember that not every moment of everyday will be sunshine and rainbows. That we will let moments slide by unnoticed, our kids will grow faster than we planned, and we will most likely sit back and wonder how and why we didn't spend more time "enJOYing" what we weren't able to see while we were busy raising them. You see I believe "Joy", like everything else in THIS world is really not so perfect. It doesn't come without heartache, struggles or pain. Sometimes there is regret, but mostly it reminds us that we are human, and in being human we do the best we know how. We laugh when we can, we cry if we need to and we enJOY the moments as they are given, which over time will become our memories.......or that special gift of JOY!
Recent Comments