No matter where you look—online or otherwise—you will see the over-exaggerated claims of a haggard homemaker raising the average 2.1 children who insists that she has the hardest job on earth. It’s as if today’s mom is so busy trying to prove that she doesn’t sit around all day like Peg Bundy—eating chocolate and shopping for shoes—that many mothers have banded together to make motherhood appear as though it’s the hardest job on Earth.
But is it? Is motherhood REALLY THAT difficult? Or are many moms trying to make it out to be difficult simply to gain sympathy and perhaps respect from the rest of the world for doing one of the most basic and natural things on the planet: raising children?
If you took a walk back a few decades into your own mom’s, or grandmothers or great-grandmothers’ version of motherhood, you would likely be surprised at just how easy you have it today. Let’s be real: mothers are the consumers of all consumers, and nearly everything that they buy comes pre-packaged and often pre-prepared at the grocery store. Feeding the kids is nothing more than boiling water and throwing in some Ramen noodles, slicing an apple, and opening a quick pack of on-the-go pudding. Cleanup consists of throwing away paper plates and getting rid of the evidence of your addiction to pre-packaged goods. There is no more gardening for fresh fruits and vegetables unless it’s a hobby, few people are canning summer veggies for cold winter dinners, and a lack of mealtime as a family has become common for most of the modern world. According to some reports, the average family eats fast food at least three nights per week, making the home-cooked meal a bit of a treat on special occasions.
Washing machines and dryers take nearly all the work (notice I didn’t say time) out of laundry. Years ago, clothes were scrubbed by hand in un-air-conditioned houses and hung to dry on a line outside. Today’s mom has a washer and dryer in her LAUNDRY room—front-loading with risers to make it even easier—and has to do very little but press a few buttons to get clean clothes. Ironing? Well, that’s a lost art, considering today’s washers even do that. So, while you might be complaining that you have four loads of laundry to do a day, the reality is that the actual physical labor it takes to perform these loads of laundry takes less than an hour combined.
We have dishwashers, electric mixers, automatic stoves, and crockpots. Vacuums that can robot themselves around a room, pot fillers in our kitchen sinks, and bakeries to sell fresh bread and birthday cupcakes that taste like grandma used to make. In fact, nearly every job of the average mother is now automated. Even caring for the children, with learning cell phone applications, laptops, video recorders in the car, and dozens of television shows to keep them occupied, has become a breeze. Plus, our days are filled with trips to the zoo, the play park, the water park, and any other place that can take our money and keep our kids interested long enough for mom to enjoy a day out. Gone are the days of taking hikes, playing in the backyard, making forts out of couch cushions, and building block towers that touch the ceiling.
So, What’s All This Whining About?
Certainly, mothers work hard. There is no other job on earth that comes standard with as much worry or whining. (Unless you’re a politician.) Kids are downright annoying creatures at times and can send the sanest woman on the planet jumping off a cliff after several hours per day. And kids do take up a lot of time. But today’s mom has Facebook, iPhones, and text messages to break it all up, ensuring that she is no longer isolated from society simply because she is raising kids. Today’s mom, in so many ways, has it made compared to the moms of yesterday. Today’s mom has 2.1 kids, as opposed to the standard 4 or 5. And she has playgroups, meet-ups, gyms with childcare, and babysitters. Today’s mom has even made it possible to work in the metaphorical ‘me time’ requirement as a requisite of childbirth. Your grandmother had no ‘me time.’
Perhaps what makes today’s job of motherhood so difficult for many is that being a mom is no longer enough. Mothers want to work, which is great. Mothers want a career, which is awesome. Mothers want to be more than just mothers, which is inspiring. On top of that, mothers want to secure their children imaginary spots in distant places where they think their child will find success, so they overschedule and plan too many things for their child. Then, the working mom, stay-at-home mom becomes the on-the-go mom. And no matter how much technology makes things easier, you still have to be home to get things done. So mom becomes overwhelmed, frustrated, resentful, and moody, and suddenly thinks she has the hardest job on Earth. On top of that, she is worried that she isn’t spending enough time with her kids just being mom and is always in a rush, leaving one place to get to another.
When it comes down to it, motherhood should be easy. Love your kids. Put them first. Sacrifice things for their childhood. Raise them right. And feel good about what you do, every day—in the process, without succumbing to false expectations of what you should be doing. Really, when you get back to the basics, motherhood isn’t that difficult. And even if it is a little hard, the payoff in the long run is quite amazing.
