My Children Will Survive If I…

I heard my daughter scream then yell mom from her bedroom. I could tell by how many O’s she put in mom that she was about to throw one of her brothers under the bus. I instantly went into a fight or flight response. Since I had been fighting with them all day and subsequently loosing, I fled. I slipped into my bedroom closet as she came barreling out of her room letting another long-winded mom roll off her tongue. My mind began to generate its usual banter, blocking out her persistent yearning to rat out her brother.  How did I get here again? After months of trying to clear myself a path I was entangled in the vines with weeds growing around my feet. Every time I sit in front of the computer to do some writing (a little something for myself) they smell it. They hunt me down like a pack of wolves and gnaw at me until I have no choice but to abandon post.  Constant interruptions mixed with the drudgery of daily chores had once again taken over and stopped me in my tracks. I was trapped – not only behind the depressing sight of my skinny jeans but in my world where doing something for me is forbidden. As my mind went silent from defeat, I noticed an odd sound; kids, playing together without fighting. While I was throwing myself a pity party in the dark, the conflict that had made me stuff myself in the closet had resolved itself  – I emerged enlightened.

 I realized my children will survive if I don’t referee every fight. For that matter they would most likely survive if I don’t answer every call for mom, do every dish or make every bed – everyday. So, why do I keep doing it? Maybe I am a victim of the routine – the monotonous stay-at-home mom daily drudge that, after years, lulls your mind into a trance until your actions are robotic and each day is a carbon copy of the next.  This routine overrides rational thinking and replaces it with the urge to make chores priority. We allow the routine to lead us into a world of cooking and cleaning because our children deserve to eat healthy and dwell in a sterile environment. So we follow the path of carbon copy day’s barely feeling the cuts from thorns or itch of poison ivy until we find ourselves hiding in the closet from our kids. I am at constant odds with the routine – every time I try to clear a better path by doing something for me, the routine calls and I am pulled back into the thickets.

After the closet episode I was determined to veer off from the routine. I dropped the kids at school, came home and sat in front of my computer hoping to squeeze in some writing time. Then I smelled it – the syrup that was stuck on the plates that were left in the sink from breakfast. I made myself stay in front of the computer, fight the urge of the routine but the syrup taunted me until all I could think about was how much of a mess the house was. I put up a good fight, made some valid points to myself but in the end, routine won. I am caught in this cycle so often that instead of clearing my path I walk in circles digging myself into a hole too deep for an easy climb.

Are all stay-at-home moms just closet routine addicts, unable to hang on to the rational thinking that our children will survive if we leave the breakfast dishes until noon?  Will they survive if I don’t vacuum?  Will they survive if I don’t do the laundry?  Will they survive if I do something for myself? Will I survive if I don’t?