Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
The other day I had a melt-down. A straight out adult temper tantrum. I had HAD IT! After coming home from work one night, I walked into my kitchen to discover a tornado had demolished it while I was gone. It couldn’t have been like that when I left, could it? There were dishes in the sink, homework and books covering both the table and the countertop, the garbage needed to be taken out, and there was cereal scattered across the floor from one end of the room to the other. As I walked through the house, I noticed it wasn’t just my kitchen, but my entire house that seemed a disaster. And there, sprawled out in front of the television, calmly enjoying a bag of potato chips BEFORE DINNER, ON THE COUCH, were my 2 teenagers who kindly said, “Hi Mom! How was your day?”
I flipped out! “What do you mean, how was my day? Look at this mess! What have you been doing? I have been at work for 9 hours, dinner needs to be made, there is a mountain of laundry calling my name, the babies won’t let go of my legs because they have been with a sitter all day and they need some mommy time! Can’t you see what a mess you have made?” My son piped in and said, “Sorry, Mom. Um, we need milk, and I need help on my homework.“
I had to put myself in time out before things got ugly. I was overwhelmed.
It’s not like I had never come home to a dirty house before. It happens a lot. That is my reality. I am a working mom, not superwoman. But on this particular day, I couldn’t take my reality anymore. Why couldn’t things be the way I expected them to be in my head?
It should be something like this: I come home from work to happy children (like everyone else’s children seem to be), a clean home (like everyone else’s seems to be), and no laundry (because I should be able to at least get that done – it’s not like laundry is hard!), and so went my negativity. I had all kinds of crazy expectations that my life was just NOT living up to. I felt miserable and frustrated.
Looking back, my behavior seems a bit silly, but that day I also learned something. I learned that discontentment and frustration with our lives happens when there is a gap between our expectations and our reality. Think about it. We have a picture in our minds of exactly the way we feel things should be, yet when life doesn’t produce that for us, we feel cheated.
I want to share a few thoughts I had after that experience. They are just a few things that we can do to close the gap between our expectations and our reality.
1) Redefine Your Expectations. Where do our expectations come from? Magazines, television, perusing websites and blogs of seemingly “perfect” wives, homemakers, and mothers. We tend to compare our worst moments to everyone else’s best moments. In my world, it is IMPOSSIBLE to expect that my house will be show room ready at all times. Yet that is the standard I continually compare the state of my house to, and it makes me crazy. My reality is that I work full time, and the time I am home, I want to spend focusing on my children, not scrubbing the tile with a toothbrush. My expectation has been adjusted to my home being clean enough to be healthy, and messy enough to be happy.
2) Count Your Blessings. This changes our reality. Instead of thinking, “My children NEVER mind me,” I need to pay attention to all the times they actually DO mind me. Our reality might be closer to our expectation than we think if we just pay attention to the positive, and not focus on what seems to be lacking.
3) Realize that there is a time and season for everything. Our “reality” will shift over time, as our lives change and our families grow. One day our laundry rooms will not be overflowing with grass stained jerseys and holey jeans, but today we need to just smile and get busy. We need to keep our expectations within our current “season”. We don’t need to feel discontent because we are expecting something that is just not possible right now. It may be possible soon enough.
4) Set Goals. What remains of the gap after adjusting our minds a bit can be bridged by setting goals. We do have the power to change our circumstances, to learn and grow and become the women we want to be. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Just take it one step at a time. In fact, The Power of Moms is launching this new tool to help you do just that! What a great resource to help us grow!
My melt-down that day was not the first, and it will not be the last. (I am a woman after all.) But hopefully the next time I feel like my life is not playing out like the fairy tale it is supposed to be in my head, I can step back, take a deep breath and see it for what it really is. It’s real. It’s mine. And that is more than enough.
QUESTION: What is your main source of frustration? Do you have unrealistic expectations?
CHALLENGE: Go through Mindy’s suggestions to bring your expectations more in line with your current reality.
2 comments
Nancy says:
May 16, 2012
Thank you, Mindy, for this article. I have two young adult children at home and have experienced similar moments. There is such a delicate balance for me as a single mom between letting my kids be independent, respecting their busy schedules, and still having standards, such as family prayer, family scripture study, family council, and a not quite disastrous kitchen when I come home from work. At times, I feel frustrated and inadequate. After reading your article, I remember I have great kids…and maybe things are not so disastrous afterall. Perhaps it’s time to go sit on their beds and talk with them about their lives! Thanks for reminding me I’m not alone.
Melanie Vilburn says:
May 16, 2012
Your sentence about putting yourself in time out really made me smile. I remember marching myself into time out the other day with three of my kids who’d just been “invited there.” We time it according to age, so I naturally had a longer “sentence” than they had. They thought it was a scream =).
Life is HARD sometimes. Our dreams, goals, and hardwork suddenly run apart and stream like raindrops down a window pane at unexpected times. Philippians 3 helps me cope with those moments, yet even today I had to stop and ask God to help me somehow be happy about loosing and to please help me see things from His perspective. Why must everything except the pure, unconditional love of Christ fail? The answer surprised me. It left me a little speechless. I suddenly saw myself from His perspective and how all I do is rather worthless eternally except for the pure, unconditional love of Jesus Christ that’s developed through them. Funny how all those messes and problems are really just opportunities to grow closer to Christ in the right ways. I wish I could remember that…