"If Mom Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy"

Recently, I was invited to participate in a community conference for women put on by a local organization. The conference title was "The Oys and Joys of Parenting" and the part I was to be involved with was called "The Revolving Door Syndrome: Stepping Out of Existing Patterns". The goal was to provide practical tips to moms in order that they might walk away with some concrete ideas on how to bring more joy into daily life.

I should have paused when I first read the title of "my" section. "Stepping Out of Existing Patterns" doesn't necessarily speak to the goal of helping moms put more FUN into their days. And, after our first couple of meetings, I should have paused again.

I was asked to take the title and brainstorm (on the spot) how I would go about leading this segment of the conference. My brainstorm was then merged with whatever ideas already existed and I was asked to go to it. Start creating a list of ideas we can share with moms. I talked to friends. I sent out a mass email recruiting creative, FUN ideas. I spent hours at night researching ideas from Mommy websites.

When I'm asked to participate in something, I don't say yes unless I'm going to give it my all. All you need to do is mention MOTHERHOOD, and I'm on board (at least until now). As of yesterday, I have been asked to remove myself from the conference committee. It appears (and I suppose I should agree) that I am on a different page.

Part of my problem is that I asked for clarification of what page we were supposed to be on in the first place. It was my feeling that the direction we were going was not the intended direction as I understood it. The task of coming up with practical, FUN ideas to share with moms turned into suggestions such as: "creating a family cheer" (if you think this is a good idea, you should stop reading right now. you don't belong here) or "surprise your child with a treat or a note in their lunch". Now, the latter is not necessarily a bad idea but does a mother really need to be told to do that?

My dilemma turned into the focus of the actions suggested. They were set up to put a smile on the child's face. How might this benefit the mother? "A happy child leads to a happy mother", I was told. (or vice versa, I added) But, I'm not really into creating a world where my child always has to be happy so that my day goes much better. I am more interested in providing ideas for the MOTHER to use to manage the day to day tasks of motherhood with a good attitude, to provide innovative and FUN ideas to get her through those moments... the OYS that were mentioned above.

One of the women on this committee made a suggestion to another mom who was having a difficult time getting her children to sit down (all at once) for breakfast. She suggested setting the table with a fun tablecloth, buying paper goods and inviting the children to a breakfast party. This, in my opinion, was something FUN for the children as well as useful for the mother. From that, one may even come up with other ideas to be used on a daily basis to assist with the difficulty of gathering everyone at the breakfast table.

I suppose there is a reason for everything. This experience has led me to throw out every how to get your child to sleep, eat, behave, listen, love you book that I own. Why can't parenting just be parenting? My mom didn't have all these crazy books that she had to refer to before she made a decision about what kind of shoes to buy me when I was crawling or to help her determine which stroller would be most ergonomically correct for my growing spine or how to balance life with three children born in five years.

Why does so much work and effort have to put into adding a little JOY into the lives of your children or into your own life, for that matter. We get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of daily living, we forget to take pause to do the little things that mean so much.

Why do we need to be trained on Nurtured Heart Parenting or Parent Effectiveness Training or Parenting with one eye closed, one hand behind your back and one foot dragging one small cling-on child? I'd like to see the research that says "this parenting technique is the one that puts more children into Harvard than any other" or "children who have been parented with this technique and ONLY this technique are more successful in later life".

Don't get me wrong. I love hearing new ideas; I talk to my friends about what they do in certain parenting situations, I call my mom for ideas all the time. I value learning and I model that for my children as well. What it all boils down to - in my eyes - is that we need to LOVE our children, we need to FOCUS on the things that are important in life and learn to BALANCE those things with the mundane responsibilities we all have and we need to MODEL for our children the VALUES we feel will help them become successfully functioning human beings in the greater society!