This is a hard admission to make as a parent. The evidence is all around me. My chaotic home. My dwindling bank account. My 3.5 year old embarking on her second hour of TV watching. Me sitting in my pajamas still at nearly 8:30 on a Tuesday morning.
I have other Mom friends I much admire who keep nice homes. I replay the conversations with these friends in my head and realize the conversations are one-sided for one thing, and full of me rationalizing and blaming others for my problems.
Me rationalizing: "It's hard to believe this by looking at my place now, but in college I was really neat. My dorm room was really immaculate. And when I was single and living in my studio apartment, there were moments when I might have left some books out on the table sometimes, and I slacked on the vacuuming, but I mostly took pride in my home." But who cares about what I did right 10-15 years ago, when all that matters is today.
Me blaming: "I am good at cleaning up after myself, but not other people. Rob leaves his clothes on the floor and Fiona leaves her toys on the floor."
Then I really start to feel bad, because for all his faults, Rob is a good hearted person, and I realize what a crappy wife I am for bashing her hubby to friends. And as far as Fiona is concerned, it IS my job to teach her how to cleanup after herself. Then I start to feel like I must be coming across as a bore.
My Mom too, bears the brunt of my rambling. Bless her she doesn't say much, but I know what she is thinking, "Stop rambling and do something about it already!"
I came to the realization that I have only been giving lip service to most of my principles lately. This is a disheartening feeling. I'm not my parents' daughter - that's how it feels. I was raised by two moral, hard-working, type A people.
And the reoccurring theme is that I know the solutions are simple, but hard.
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