Never Say Never
“Chocolate milk! Chocolate milk!” It’s the warning call of a determined three year-old charging through a crowded line at the local Starbucks to grab his beloved drug of choice. Oh, and by the way, that three year-old belongs to me, the oh-so-healthy mommy who swore she’d never give her kid sugar – let alone use sugar and caffeinated milk to bribe her kid into sitting for a few blessed minutes in the local coffee shop.
It’s obvious that the road to reality is paved with good intentions. I know that’s not technically the way the saying goes, but it does more accurately reflect my life as a WoMo — and to some extent any mom’s life if we are truly being honest about it all. Most of us WoMos can easily tick off a huge host of things we remember either saying we would never do (serve our kids chicken nuggets, use the boob tube as a baby sitter, co-sleep, worry about preschools before they could walk…) or things we said we were definitely going to do (breast feed for at least a year, make our own baby food, use a jogging stroller to lose the baby weight…). Most of these statements or goals were made prior to birthing a baby or at least prior to the moment of truth when lack of time, sleep, willpower or flexible employer sent them on a crash course with reality. And most of them are not being carried through by the vast majority of us. The truth is that nobody is perfect, and we all need to cut each other a break, including ourselves. Raising a child (or a few) with two working parents requires not only great balance but lots of forgiveness of each other and ourselves.
Since coming clean is therapeutic, I will open my closet first and share my own partial list of things I intended to do – or intended to never do – as a mom… until the working mom part of WoMo-ville interfered (or gave me an excuse to cross it off the list):
Bring my baby everywhere and anywhere. Before I had Tavish, Nate and I would point to times we saw couples at raging parties with babies in the Bjorn and say “How cool, we’re going to do that.” Parties, trips, work functions – I would simply wear my little guy everywhere and go on with life. Right. First of all, I happened to get one of those infants who hated being “worn” (tried everything from the Ergo to the Bjorn to the sling… nada). And second, nobody told me about the difficulty with naps, diapers, etc. and amount of equipment needed to take a baby out into the world, along with the logistics of feeding that hungry child at the breast every 2-3 hours. Staying home with the kid seemed much more appealing.
Learn to say “No” to my boss and set boundaries around family time. Right. This from the woman who was checking email on Christmas Eve and has taken conference calls from the playground more often than she’d like to admit. The closest I got to this was in insisting on a four day-week schedule upon return from maternity leave – which has eventually morphed into being paid 80% of my salary for a full-time job.
Never bribe my child with treats or TV. Sure, that’s why my purse is always stocked with granola bars and our DVR is filled with “Dinosaur Train,” “Franklin” and “Diego” episodes.
Get a “mom bob.” Traumatized by a bad cut & perm combo in high school (just call me a late 90s Madonna-wannabe), I hadn’t cut my hair above the shoulders in almost two decades. In fact, for a few years, I even spent a fortune on extensions to sport the sexy long hair do. But too many mornings where a messy ponytail substituted for a style finally convinced me of the appeal of a bob – albeit a sassy asymmetrical, well highlighted one.
Regularly cook healthy food and never succumb to kiddie staples like mac and cheese and chicken nuggets. Let’s face it: I never cooked before, and now I have less time than I ever did in the past, so working motherhood has simply provided another excuse to spend large portions of our paychecks on Trader Joes’ frozen aisle and takeout.
How about any of you? Feel like fessing up? Please share!
Aimee Grove has been writing for fun and for profit since high school. Aimee’s byline has appeared in such publications as Forbes, Via, Diablo, How, Contra Costa Times and San Francisco Magazine, where she penned a regular gossip column (how appropriate) called “The City Mouth.” She is a noted speaker and media source on issues related to media relations and consumer marketing. Married, with a three-year-old son, Tavish, Aimee and her family live in shoebox-sized apartment in San Francisco where they dream about moving someday to the beach or the burbs. Visit her at WoMoments.
