About Carly Cooper
A certified Life Coach for Moms and creator of www.balance-the-mother-load.com, Carly Cooper’s blog offers helpful strategies for mothers struggling with guilt, unrealistic expectations and the inability to balance it all – with a generous dose of laughter.
It's Time for an Adjustment
balance the mother load canada
(Nov.04.09)
Being a Life Coach for moms, I've come to realize something. Mothers have a lot to do. But what's worse than the actual tasks themselves, is the tremendous pressure and unrealistic expectations that we put on ourselves.
I was reminded of this uncomfortable feeling last week when I was talking to a friend of mine. She couldn't speak long because she was busy making her kids Halloween costumes from scratch. For a very brief moment, I felt the prickly pang of guilt as I remembered being psyched about the store-bought Shrek costume that my husband picked out for our son to wear. But then I quickly snapped back into my reality and realized that I am about as competent with a sewing machine as my three-year-old is at parallel parking. Unless he wanted to be a crooked piece of orange felt with no place for his limbs, I felt comfortable in our $35 investment.
Moms face this kind of pressure every day. I speak to career moms who have deadlines tighter than Joan Rivers' face. And they're looked down upon if they have to leave the office for appointments with their kids. Then there are the stay-at-home moms who sometimes struggle with feelings of isolation, boredom, loss of identity and guilt that they aren't always loving every minute of motherhood. Which is shocking to me. Who wouldn't love wiping poo, cleaning vomit off yourself and listening to an overly-excited battery powered toy playing the same song over and over again? Good times!
Motherhood is an amazing experience. But like anything else, there are also things about it that are harder than scoring tickets to Oprah's Favorite Things show. Relationships often get strained. Friendships tend to suffer. And personal goals and dreams sometimes get put on the back burner in order to give us room to focus on our families. But that's only if you ALLOW these things to happen.
I believe moms can have it all. It may not be all at the same time but you certainly don't have to wait 18 years to live a life that excites you. In most cases, if a woman is unhappy somewhere in motherhood, her expectations are way too high. She's doing too much for other people and not listening to what SHE truly wants. It wasn't until I finally adjusted my expectations and learned to let go that I felt I got my life back.
Here's to balancing your motherload!