Stress

You know that song, "It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year"?  I sometimes think of it as "It's the Most Stressful Time of The Year". Mothers seem to be the most prone to this.  The kids aren't stressed- Santa is coming and they have no school.  Men don't seem to be stressed about it either.

Two posts from friends this week- one on breastfeeding expectations for new mothers and one on holiday perfection- got my mind churning.  At some point, being a mother stopped being a relationship and started being a job.  Once a year, at my work, we have performance evaluations in which your performance is ranked on a sliding scale starting with  "you totally suck at everything" and ending with "you are the best employee ever", with most people (including the Mom of No) somewhere in between. 

For moms, there is no scale- there is either utter failure or blissful perfection.  You tried breastfeeding but it wasn't working so you ended up using formula? Utter failure. No points for the fact that the baby is still fed and happy.  Your dining room looks like a set for a famous kitchenwares company?  Blissful perfection.  Extra points if you have kids and they don't break any of the dishes or spill cranberry sauce on the heirloom lace tablecloth.  No wonder there are so many memes about mothers needing lots of wine on Facebook. 

As I learned to adapt to my son's autism, my standards started changing as well.  What I considered a success was not necessarily what other people considered a success.  I got a phone call once from his school because he'd been running down the hall with a gen ed student.  My reaction was hey, he made a friend! Success! The school was actually calling me because running was against the rules.  So he was breaking the rules, but he was doing it with someone else! Still a success!  I was able to nurse my daughter (disclosure: I did it because I'm frugal and formula is expensive whereas breast milk is free; pumping while working full time is a complete pain in the butt) but my son needed to supplement.  He still thrived (he grew like a weed).  About the only thing I wish I'd done differently when my kids were little was to pay much less attention to what other people thought I should be doing.

I was once discussing with another friend about how at some point, you're just making work for yourself with no significant return.  If you enjoy making individually spun sugar snowflakes to put on 200 cookies, then you should do it.  But if you don't enjoy it, or you'd really rather be doing something else, your kids or co-workers will probably still eat the cookies even without the snowflakes.  In fact, both my kids and my co-workers will joyfully eat anything that has chocolate on it even if it's a boxed cake mix.  Joyful eating is always a success, whether it's store-bought cupcakes or hand-crafted homemade Pinterest-worthy creations.

I'll tell you a secret.  The Family of No has been beset this December by various illnesses, and nary a cookie has been baked in our house.  The tree is up and decorated, and the presents are wrapped but only because I had to take a day off work to go to the dentist so I had some extra time. I probably won't break out the good china on Christmas (we might have pizza for dinner), and I don't even have a dining room so no worries there.  Not an utter failure, but not blissful perfection either.  So if you're worried about perfection, worry no more.  At least one other mother (me) is right there with you.