On Being Happy: Mother's Day

Mother's Day (Image Courtesy of Baby Gizmo

I'll be honest: I am writing this post before Mother's day, because I have hopes that Mother's day will be busy with other things.

At the very least, I am hoping I get to sleep in, and maybe get breakfast in bed. I suspect I will get that because James has been watching all of these breakfast recipe shows on Youtube with me. I think he is fishing for an idea.

Mother's day makes me a little bit sad.  I know, I am sure there are people out there thinking "Wait, what? You are a mother who isn't happy on Mother's day? Someone is doing something wrong!" And the thing is, my husband pulls out most of the stops for Mother's day. I usually

Every Other Day (Image Courtesy of School of Hard Knox)

get breakfast in bed, house cleaned, all the meals made by someone else, and a massage, or go do something special just for me kind of thing.

What makes me sad is that my family thinks that they should only do those things on special occasions like my birthday, Valentine's day and Mother's day.

Now, I am not saying that I should be pampered all the time. I never wanted to be a princess and I'm not going to start now. But I have noticed (especially in this last year, when I went back to a "real job" and am trying to balance that 40 hour work week with my writing, being a wife, being a mom, and not living like a slob) that I do chores every single day. No one else in my house can say that. I never have enough time to get everything I need to do done, and always feel harried and harassed. Why are my wants and needs only important a couple of "special days" a year?

I don't think that Feminists anticipated by "encouraging" women into the workforce, they would create a society where women had to work in order for their family to survive. After all, when most families have two incomes the cost of living goes up.  Even living in Utah, a state where a large number of women stay at home, my family cannot afford for me not to work. Partly because I need to pay off my student loans, but a lot because the cost of living is so high. We struggled for a little over a year doing it and it just didn't work.

I have debated hiring a maid. We have tried every form of bribery possible to get the children to do it, but it just isn't happening. I am very sympathetic with my husband's desire to kick back and relax after work. After spending 12 hours out of the home working, the last thing I want to do when I get home is a bunch of chores. I am doing good to cook dinner most nights. We went from hardly ever eating out to eating out a couple of times a week. That already takes a good chunk of my salary. Adding a maid seems impractical, but I can't keep living in the mess.

Add on top of that, the fact that I try to spend an hour every day working on my writing career... and it is no wonder I never have time. I need to start making time to work out too, but where am I supposed to squeeze everything in?

There are not enough hours in the day, and I just don't have the energy. I have tried to incorporate my family so we are spending time together as well, but no one wants to work out with me, no one wants to clean with me, and everyone gets mad when I don't have the energy to play a board game one night a week, do family movie night, play video games, read every night, or go out on the weekends.

I feel like a bad mother because I struggle to make time, but I feel like no one is making time for what is important to me.

See why I struggle with being happy?

On Being Happy- Cleaning

This is something I have been struggling with lately.  I feel like I am constantly struggling to balance everything. I know what I want, I know how I want things to be, I can see the happy life.... and yet, despite putting all these steps in place to get there I find myself... Not happy.

I am constantly feeling overwhelmed, like a failure, and cannot seem to get everyone on board. See, in my world of  "happy" I am trying to balance my job, career, family, husband, house, and living.  I have an obsessive need to plan. For there to be enough time to achieve everything, everyone has to pitch in. And they don't. And then I get overwhelmed. I am going to be running some posts on finding this happiness. Today, we are going to talk about finding happiness around one of the most obvious problems: Cleaning.


There are all these cutsey quips online about a messy house is a happy house, and other ridiculous nonsense like this:

And so my children are right, I am a horrible mom because I cannot live like this. And it is not just because I am neurotic about wanting a clean house. I literally get sick if my house is dirty. I am allergic to dust. I cannot breathe when my carpets aren't vacuumed regularly. But everyone else in my house is just fine with the mess, unless they are busy yelling and blaming each other.

And my house is never clean, and I am not happy.

And when momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

I have tried to back off. I have tried the tackle-it- all myself approach, but it just makes me more mad because there are a million other things I would rather be doing than cleaning house. I don't enjoy cleaning house (I envy those who say that they do.) But it is something that needs to be done. There is a reason they call it a chore. But in my house everyone seems to think I have unreasonable standards. I have tried paying for chores, I have tried no fun til chores are done, I have tried "family cleaning time" which just turns into family fighting time. I have tried everything there is to try. I have explained the importance of cleaning, that I can't do it all myself, that I need everyone to contribute. And I will get a bit of compliance for a time.... and then no one wants to do their part.

How do I survive when I am the only one in the house that needs it clean? How do you find the way to being happy living in mess and unable to breath?

Am I just neurotic? Are my problems breathing all in my head? Or should I focus on cleaning and let go of the other things I want, because being healthy is an important part of being happy. I can't be healthy in a dirty house. Let other stuff go.

This is going to be a long saga of trying to find a way to be happy. Solving each problem in turn, I hope will allow me to achieve my end results.

Would love your thoughts on this struggle. Feel free to comment below.