“You only have 18 summers with your kids, make each one count.”

Technically I’ve had 15 of those summers already and when I look back at Summer 2020(barf), it’s technically sucked. I’m usually the mom putting pressure on myself to make each summer magical. To achieve the right balance of down time and to create memories of adventures and shared experiences together. 

So reading this kind of thing? Well, it’s a load of crap. There I said it. Crap. 18 summers is it? I don’t know who said that or what generation they were living in, because clearly they haven’t seen what the cost of living and real estate prices are in Toronto.  I’m pretty certain my kids will be hanging out for a few more summers than that. But I digress. I look at this quote and realize that for the last 15 years I have been trying so hard to create summers that “count.” But really what it does is add to the mom guilt syndrome and put even more pressure on moms, as if we don’t all already have enough to feel like bad moms about.  

What is Mom guilt you ask (because you stumbled onto my blog and aren’t familiar with this term). It’s the feeling that accompanies motherhood that no matter what you do, you aren’t doing enough and you aren’t doing it right. EVER. (Moms of teenagers will even have their spawn affirm that every so often with slamming doors added for full effect.) It’s a feeling that permeates every facet of every thing we do, except for those small fleeting moments when everyone is happy, fed and fast asleep in their own beds. So basically we feel it all the time except for 5 mins a day.

Mom guilt comes during every meal time: Are we feeding them a diverse range of food to develop a cultured palate, and is each bite worthy of a high intake of healthy calories and nutritional content. Oh and it better be organic because HOW DARE YOU feed them toxic garbage????

Mom guilt loud whispers in our ears during bedtime (OMG does it not know I’m trying to get the kids to sleep!?). Are they sleeping enough, but not too much because then they won’t get in all of 3 hours homework, 2 hours of hockey practice and their 2.5 hours of carefree kid time in each day. Did you sleep train them, but not emotional scar them by allowing them to cry too much. 

Are they getting outside to play enough and just be kids? But also did you make sure to expose them to every single activity that’s available. Oh wait –  they aren’t playing AAAA hockey and keeping up with their Mandarin lessons? tsk tsk. It must be because they are on screens all the time. Gulp. Ok I’ll stop here, I’ll lose every time when we get to the topic of screens. 

Okay, there’s more but frankly I’m tired. Like tired as a mother kinda of tired which means TIRED. There’s clearly a zillion, kabillion and one things for moms to feel guilt about. So then WHY IS SUMMER BEING RUINED FOR US TOO????? Please, please, please let’s stop with the whole “make every summer count.”


Summer of 2020 was NOT at all what I expected or planned it to be.  Life pelted us with lemons and frankly, I hate lemonade ( also, who actually likes lemonade?)
 
This summer has not counted in the way that I have always tried to make it count. This summer has been harrrdddd. It’s been screen filled, and quiet and stressful.  We won’t look back and say, “remember those amazing memories we had when we forced you kids to walk the dog with us every day and you whined so much that we yelled and gave up?”
 
 
Which is why I’m implementing my new “Rules for Kicking Mom Guilt to the Curb:”
  1.  Breathe: No, like REALLY breathe. Like one of those yoga-kind of breaths they tell you do to find my inner Gwyenth Paltrow Chakra (that’s one of the names of our 46 Chakras right?)
  2. Let it Go: Thank you Elsa, I suppose listening to you sing for the 2.7th million time taught me something. I don’t actually have any control. About anything other than how I react to things, and even then I like to blame other things for my reactions. So letting go of control about a lot of things is what I am working on. But I’m still going to buy myself control-top underwear so I at least I feel some semblance of things not spilling out.
  3. Phone a friend:  I’m going to call up a mom friend (or text because seriously who calls these days?) and I am going to complain and find my community who understands that this is hard. My people who know that I am actually a pretty awesome mom who makes mistakes but is doing her best (and no I don’t pay my people to say that -always.)
  4. Self-Praise: I’m going to tell remind myself that I am a good mother. I am doing my best. I love my kids. They will be fine. Now I’m going to go eat some ice cream directly from the container because it’s still summer and I’m the adult.

It took a pandemic to remind me that it doesn’t matter if we had endless beach days, or authentic gelato in Italy. It doesn’t matter if we actually did everything off of our summer bucket list (we did ONE). The kids are home, happy, being kids and I’d be yelling at them on the beaches of the Algarve or in my backyard regardless. Also, who am I kidding? Remember those Toronto real estate prices? These kids won’t able to move out until about 2050 anyways!

 
THIS MAMA NOTES: My jeans in the top photo are those “mom jeans”, with an affordable price from Levi’s, you don’t need any mom guilt about these!