Supermom Syndrome

I was just making a To Do List for the day. Tomorrow we will be heading to Andy's 10 year high school reunion (I'm afraid to blink in case another ten years go by while I do!) and the Anacortes Arts and Crafts Festival (the only year we've missed it is the weekend when Elise was due to be born - although she turned out to be little Miss Tardy, so we could have made it anyway), and then we'll be heading straight from that fun-filled weekend to spending a couple of days with friends at a nearby lake. Should be a lot of fun, a sort of mini-vacation for us. Then a few days after that will be Elise's birthday party. So...my to do list today was getting quite long. Cleaning (because I hate coming home to a mess), paying bills, packing; drafting next quarter's nursery schedule that needs to be sent out next week; returning phone calls; mailing birthday cards to two of my siblings; making a menu plan and shopping list for Elise's party. Not really terribly hard stuff, just a lot of little stuff.

And then I got this article in my email inbox. What timing! I'm not feeling particularly burned out right now, although I certainly have felt that way in the past. But it's good to get these reminders before burnout occurs, I think. It's true that people tend to think that stay-at-home moms have a lot of free time. They must, because they are at home - right? Umm...yeah, not so much. And we ourselves - or at least I myself - oftentimes think the same way. I should have time to help out with that ministry. I'm at home. Why do we discount what we do at home? Is it somehow less important than outside endeavors? I know a couple of people who are household managers. That's their job. They manage households. Is that not what I do? Is it only valid and important if a household manager manages a household other than their own? If they get paid for it? I don't think so. And I really don't feel put upon or burned out or disrespected or anything like that, as you might suspect from this post. I was just reminded by that article that I don't have to be, and in fact should not try to be, Supermom. Just "Mom" is fine by me.