Here’s the thing. We can be as introspective as we want, but at the end of the day, we are what we do.
The words we speak, the books we read, the way we treat people, the art we create and the priorities we make.
We can think of ourselves as young and healthy, but if breakfast consists of a coffee as we throw ourselves into the car – we’re lying to ourselves. I want to be a present mum, physically and mentally (not a perfect mum – an important distinction) but for that to happen I have to be able to contribute to supporting our family. Money is definitely my least favourite part of adulting. Second only to taking the bins out.
And we don’t talk about it?! It feels shameful, somehow, icky, despite money being nothing more than a tool but a critical one to our existence. I’m sure there’s a monk on a mountain somewhere who would have a very valid counterpoint – but here in the Western world, my kids need shoes and do ballet classes, and we have to support them.
I want to be home to raise my children so I am growing my own business baby. While it’s with the goal of being home with the tiny creatures who are currently making at den out of my bed and demanding that I discuss the finer points of a book on beetles that they’re pouring over, I definitely go through seasons of worrying that I’m half-arsing all areas of life. Not that I’m not trying, my god I’m trying, but whether it’s work or motherhood or marriage or homemaking or health or being a friend – I find I can usually manage three. My dear friends, if you read this, I have been rubbish at making an effort for nearly a decade. I’m sorry for that. Friendships are wonderful for the soul, women need women, but finding space is hard sometimes, isn’t it?
“Be a curator of your life. Slowly cut things out until you’re left only with what you love, with what’s necessary, with what makes you happy.”
Leo Babauta
I had a very busy and productive plan for today, but my 3 year old took me aside and had a word. He looked very serious, I felt like I was about to be put on probation by the fruit of my own womb. My beautiful, fierce, stern little womb-fruit.
You see, trying to build a business to support your family is a long game. It takes a wild amount of self-believe (something I’m not too marvellous at the best of times) and motivation (often on ninety minutes sleep? No problem! Ha… thankfully I’m stubborn which is as good as determination in many ways.)
There’s a lot to do. Always. There is literally not a moment when I couldn’t be doing something that would be advantageous to the goal of being able to support my family with what I create.
Creativity also happens to be what lights me up. It nourishes that part of me that isn’t just mum/wife/homemaker/friend/daughter.
But here’s the thing.
I want to support my family so that I’m able to be with them. I didn’t get to do that with my older children – I worked 12 hour shifts and didn’t have the energy to be present mentally even when I was physically. I also want to enjoy them.
I realised, as I held the dimple-knuckled hands of my third child, that I needed to find a way to be home with them. Isn’t the internet an incredible space? Social media takes a hell of a beating for it’s flaws (which are often actually our flaws that we can blame it for… the first inferiority complex was not born on the same day as Facebook) but it’s affording incredible opportunities to mothers that just weren’t there 10 years ago. Better yet, it’s connecting us with our tribes – likeminded women who could all have been isolated had this season of their lives been a few years earlier.
But like a duck gliding on the water, while they look like they’re having a merry old time of it, gliding across the pond, those legs are paddling frantically away beneath the surface.
Which is why it isn’t just words when I say that the support I get in the internet makes those women the absolute bee’s knees, true Queens in my eyes. (I should mention that I also have quite a wonderful husband who reminds me daily that I can do anything apart from ice-skate.)
But today isn’t for that. As I said, Killian had a word. A word that involved a lot of ‘I want’, but I knew what he meant. He didn’t mean ‘I want’, he meant ‘What I need from you’ and ‘You didn’t get the balance right yesterday.’ Sometimes, toddlers are very wise without knowing it.
Today is not for being a good enough mother even if I don’t manage much else.
Apparently today’s important work in going to be playing the dinosaur memory game, having an imaginary tea party, a post-storm blustery beach walk talking the best kind of nonsense, where we’ll find a place for some rock skimming. Coming home for hot chocolates and at least one theatrical rendition of Let It Go. Tone deaf Elsa though I might be, I give it my all.
How do you spend your family days? Not the days where you’re balancing the laundry in one hand, spinning plates with the other and trying to keep the kids alive. The actual family days that feed your soul. Do you struggle to strike a balance? I would honestly love to hear your thoughts.
Helen x
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