What Becomes of the Broken Hearted

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Compare, Contrast, Despair

by Elizabeth Esther in Family on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 6:00 AM

For most of my life I’ve been trying to prove myself. This desire got kicked into high gear when I became a mother. The intention was good: I loved my children and wanted to provide the best possible care and prepare them for successful lives. Except when I tried to achieve this through sheer force of will coupled with hard work, things started to go wrong.

For one thing, I got trapped in compare/contrast mode. I read the blogs of other mothers who seemed to have it all together. Every article was a high-flying treatise on the glories of motherhood set off by gorgeous, photoshopped pictures of their immaculately groomed children cheerfully eating their homegrown vegetables on fine china. OK, I’m exaggerating a bit. But the point is, instead of feeling encouraged, I felt like a failure. No matter how hard I tried, I was never gonna measure up to that standard of excellence. Still, that didn’t stop me from trying.

What I failed to realize was that these mothers were only showing a bare percentage of their real lives. The close-up shots of perfectly arranged centerpieces didn’t capture the whole story. They were emphasizing a beautiful segment of their life, but I was applying it to the whole of their existence. I wanted the picture-perfect life, too. So, I started to copy them. It was sorta like sweeping dirt under the rug. My life appeared clean and pretty, until you pulled up the carpet. Well, that rug got yanked from under my feet this year. And this time there was no pretending.

I slammed into burn-out going sixty miles an hour. I was overcommitted and unwilling to ask for help. I was doing baseball for two boys, ballet twice a week for my daughter, a Mommy & me class for the twins, piano lessons and all this on top of the daily cleaning, cooking and laundry for seven people. When my youngest two children (twin toddlers) got the tummy flu, there was no margin for flexibility. Everything fell apart. Including me.

For eight straight days I held feverish, barfing babies, swabbed vomit, did laundry and didn’t rest. I don’t even think I brushed my teeth. Honestly, I can’t remember. It’s all become a blur. You know it’s bad when you’re so tired you’d rather just step over the puke than clean it up. And then you realize you’ve been stepping over the same pile of dried puke for five days. I managed to get everyone well and then I crawled under my covers and crashed. And prayed a very desperate, half-sobbing Memorare.

This was not the pretty, got-it-all-together life I had imagined for myself. And to be honest, I was a little angry. I felt so exhausted and depressed, absolutely worn to my last shred of strength. Why hadn’t any of the lovely, blogging mothers talked about this stuff? I didn’t want another photoshopped platitude. I wanted honesty. I wanted someone to say: Yes, mothering is hard, hard, hard work, it’s OK to ask for help and most days it just doesn’t look pretty. In fact, looks downright dirty.

I had to make some difficult decisions. For one thing, I had to admit my prideful attitude. I thought I could do it all. I thought I could control everything. And I’d tried to convey an image of perfectionism that just wasn’t honest or sustainable. I realized that reading sites that portrayed idealistic visions of motherhood, though they can be inspiring to others with different temperaments, only exacerbated my perfectionistic tendencies. What I really needed was grace. Grace to make mistakes, grace to own them, grace to learn from them. Most of all, I needed grace to accept what I couldn’t change. And grace to acknowledge my limits.

It hasn’t been easy being honest with myself and others. It has required a whopping dosage of humility. It has meant readjusting my expectations and speaking frankly with those I love. A huge part of me didn’t want to let them down. But as I admitted my weakness and need for help, help came running. Turns out, many mothers struggle with feelings of overwhelm and inadequacy.

I’m not alone. And neither are you, dear reader. I’m laying aside my perfectionism and that crazy-making tendency to compare and contrast. We’re in this mothering thing together. We need each other. I’m going start acting like it. Wanna join me?

—Elizabeth Esther Henderson is a mother of five, writer and eater of Mint Milanos. She blogs at ElizabethEsther.com

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What Becomes of the Broken Hearted

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