From Which True Happiness and Joy Springs

I think the difficulty of being unhappy in America is that Americans don’t expect to be unhappy. We have more opportunity, more resources, more money, more products at our disposal than much of the world and we expect, I think, for all that we have to equal joy. But it doesn’t always.

Marketing firms spend and make billions of dollars selling the notion that we should be happy, that if we have the right stuff we will be happy. So if we get all that stuff and we’re still not happy, we feel like something is seriously wrong with us. And so normal sadness turns into clinical depression. So marketing firms suggest if you can’t find a way to be happy with the stuff we’re selling, will sell you the right drug instead.

I’m not sure why these thoughts are on my mind this week. Maybe it’s because its Valentine’s Day and I can’t help feeling cynical because advertisers and marketing wizards have high jacked February 14^th and turned it into an excuse for restaurants to trim their menus and jack up their prices. Or maybe it’s that being a mom seems to have a strikingly similar paradigm to this American expectation of being happy.

Since I’ve been a mom I’ve been struggling with this thought pattern: As a stay at home mom, I should be happy—all the time, unequivocally.

Whenever I tell someone that I stay at home with my kids, the response is very frequently something like: “Wow, you are so lucky,” or “I wish I could be at home with my kids,” or “Do you just love it?”

I know these words are polite and kind and that is probably why people say them; to be supportive. Women who chose for any number of reasons to go back to work after their kids are born might be thinking but wouldn’t say, “Wow, that sounds so boring, how do you cope?” or “You wouldn’t catch me wasting my day like that—yikes,” or “SUCKER!”

But they probably aren’t. I think women make different choices for their families based on many factors. But there does seem to be a widely accepted view that it is good to stay home with your kids, that it is loving and self-sacrificial. But there is also a view that staying at home is the greatest gift imaginable not just for the kids, but for the mom. And it’s with this belief that so many moms wrestle.

Isn’t this supposed to be the best time in my life? We-stay-at-home moms ask ourselves. I can do whatever I want: take the kids to the park, the beach, the library. We can sleep in and take naps, have lunch together, play, sing on the carpet, do crafts.

But the fact is, you can’t sleep in—more often you’re up before the sun. And as any mother can attest, napping with more than one child in the house or even with one active infant is as attainable as the Fountain of Youth. Often we’re tired and cranky, short tempered with our kids, edgy with our partners. And we don’t want to sit on the carpet and play dollhouse. And because there is often no break from this constant face-time with and requests from our offspring, we don’t appreciate all the time we have together as we feel we ought to.

And because stay-at-home-moms are mainly (or entirely) focused on their children and matters of the home, it is that avenue that makes or breaks our self-worth. If parenting is not going well, if our kids aren’t sleeping or our toddler is a screamer and a fusser or if our preschooler is lying or hitting a lot, or if we just can’t clean as fast as our kids can make messes and our lovely homes look like daycare centers at the end of the day, we feel like we’re not doing a good enough job. What’s more, we feel like we should be able to do a good job because it’s all we’re doing. We don’t have the luxury of balance. We don’t have work projects to spread our efforts over. All our eggs are in the basket that is raising our kids.

And because raising our kids is supposed to be this incredible gift, if we’re not thoroughly delighted by it each and every day, we feel like we’re ungrateful or we’re not appreciating the gift of time with our children. And it’s the shame about being unhappy, not the unhappiness itself that is so toxic.

We expect to be happy and those around us expect us to be happy too. What stay-at-home mom has not heard from her well-meaning husband after complaining about a particularly difficult day, “Well, this is what you want, isn’t it?”

And generally it is what we want. For some of us, maybe it’s what we always wanted. And that’s why there are layers upon layers of disappointment with not always loving it. We are disappointed with mothering being at times difficult, at other times, downright crazy-making, we are disappointed in our capabilities sometimes, and mostly we are disappointed with ourselves for not being able to enjoy every minute of sock-finding, diaper-changing, spit up-cleaning, bottom-wiping, candy-negotiating, nap-fighting, car-piling, TV-begging, boredom-battling, errand-running, mothering bliss.

And it’s those layers of disappointment that compound to make us feel not only sad sometimes, but also surprised and disappointed by our sadness. It’s the expectation of happiness that makes us unable to cope with sadness. Who isn’t sad sometimes? That’s the lesson I’m trying to teach my girls. Everyone is sad sometimes; it’s normal and healthy to feel sad. Sometimes sadness is hormonal, sometimes it’s from being tired, sometimes it’s caused by actual events in our life. But it’s usually normal. That’s the lesson that I need to learn too.

Even though I’m staying at home with my kids and it is what I want, and it is wonderful, sometimes it’s also really hard and really frustrating and there are even aspects of it that are disappointing. Just like any job, I guess.

But in this job, my coworkers are the children I held in infancy and rocked and nursed and comforted. They are also the coworkers who don’t go home at the end of the day, or even the end of the week. They are the coworkers who don’t always appreciate you but they come home with you each night and eat the food you prepare and complain unabashedly when they don’t like the food. They pick their noses at the table and have to be begged to wash their hands and clear their plates. These coworkers ever spend the night each and every night and they don’t mind screaming out at three am if their covers have slipped on the floor or their pajamas are too hot.

So while staying at home with our kids is a gift and a joy and in some ways, a luxury, it is also one of the most underappreciated and poorly paid jobs one can take on. And when it is rewarding, it’s not through plaques or certificates or bonuses (or anything concrete) it’s through a smile, a hug, or a small and brutally honest coworker telling you she loves you and that you’re the best and most beautiful mom she’s ever met.

And though those rewards can’t be hung on a wall or bragged about on a future resume, they are better than any bouquet of balloons, Hallmark card or basket of flowers. It is these words, these rewards alone get us mothers past those unavoidable sad and disappointing days. And it is these rare but beautiful moments of honesty from which true happiness and joy springs.