Challenge of Motherhood

A few weeks ago it snowed, again.  The kids begged to go outside and play in it.  Besides the fact that I don’t understand why anyone would want to go out in the snow, I’m not a big fan of the bundle.  You know, where you take a child and add the extra sweater, a scarf, a hat, some mittens (or worse, gloves), the coat, boots…. whoops, forgot the snow pants, take off the boots and coat, put on the snow pants, put the boots and coat back on…..

Yeah, pretty much hate all that.  So when the kids beg to go out I try to think of a good reason why not.  This particular day the hubby was standing right there and caught me before I had a chance to think up a good reason.  He sorta laughed at me and, in jest, asked, “So why is it you became a mom again?”

Now he was just teasing me.  He does that on a regular basis. (Insert pity here.)  But his question caught me off guard as I suddenly realized that I didn’t have a good answer.  I suppose you’d have to have seen my mission statement and my mommy ‘business cards’ to know what a big deal this realization was.  This is my chosen profession. I spend a lot of time thinking about what I do and how I do it.  But for some strange reason I never thought about or answered why I do it.

It took me a few days but I finally came to the conclusion that I wanted to be a mom from the beginning because I enjoy a good challenge.  And what’s more challenging than motherhood?  To this day, I thrive on facing the challenges motherhood presents.  There’s nothing quite so satisfying as solving a problem or dilemma, finding new ways to make things run more smoothly, getting through a tough week, or watching the kids display some behavior that I’ve worked hard to teach them. 

The upside of this is that the reason I became a mom still exists.  The challenge isn’t going to go away.  I’ve heard it from many seasoned moms that the challenges don’t go away, they just change.  After 11 years in the biz myself, I’ve concluded that it’s indeed true. 

The downside is that it seeing my motherhood from this perspective really makes clear my deficits and why they exist.  Conquering a challenge requires proof that it’s been conquered.  So I tend to focus my time and attention on things that can be quantified, charted and analyzed.   Things that can’t so easily be measured tend to get less attention.  In particular, relationships.  

I could have told you before that relating to my kids on a individual, personal level is one of my weaker attributes as a mom.  But now I can clearly see why.  Perhaps that’s not such a downside.

Looks like the next challenge of motherhood is staring me in the face.  And you know how I love a good challenge.