MOMMY GUILT - Keeping a clean house, spending quality time with your family, growing a business, and keeping up a GPA - NO ONE EVER SAID IT WOULD BE EASY - ONLY WORTH IT!!

SPRING SPRING SPRING = SPRING CLEANING!! Renewed, refreshed. A clean start and ready for sunshine!!! Let me just piss right there on that parade haha If you follow me you know I am generally a very positive person, but Spring cleaning is no longer a positive thing in my house. I feel like it use to be when my kids napped and before they could share their disdain for me throwing out old broken toys that they NEVER used. Hell hath no furry like a child catching you throwing out ANYTHING... EVER... no matter how dusty, broken, or unrecognizable it is. To my Brody especially it was his "favorite toy"... ALWAYS. Yes I really saw him cry once over a paper bag monkey puppet thing... I dont even think he made it to be honest, and he spilled something on it anyway so the monkeys mouth didn't even open, but I was the evil Mom who not only threw it away but left it on top of the trash for him to SEE!!!

Now, I am a strong woman - I know this - I have weaknesses but I can feel my strength. I make no bones about that at all. My poor husband -  is all I can say, he is a strong man to handle me and to respect and love me for all of my stubbornness. I am a nurturer and creative as well, but I can be bitchy, headstrong, stubborn, confrontational, impatient.. all characteristics that I work on DAILY but that I was born with. I am the only girl of 4 and somehow inherited the worst mouth of all, just like My grandmother Leola and my YiaYia Eugenia. My grandmother was a black single mother raising her kids and working hard, and my YiaYia was a immigrant from Greece who worked hard to learn English, buy a home, build a life, and put her kids through college. I grew up watching my mother value her education and work hard all the while cooking, cleaning, and taking care of her family. Being strong is totally a choice. But so is being weak. From my first real job at 17 someone once said to me in a business meeting (yes I was 17) "Wow there's no flies on that girl." And I was too embarrassed to say I didn't know what that meant. But I later soon found out. I was proud and I have heard it a few different times over the years in business settings. I no longer need to be as confrontational to show my "strength". My temper, ego, and mouth has mellowed with maturity and age. But I will never ever be weak. It is actually one of my fears - weak women. However I would never ever call myself a feminist. I'm  not a fan of labels because I really really really don't like to be grouped with others. And I want to live a life where my actions speak for them self not the "label" that is placed on me. I am me - if I gave you all my labels that fit me you would probably be very confused by my description :) In any case I agree with Oprahs quote: "I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that's how I operate my life."

With all that being said a few weeks back I was sick with strep throat and laying in bed watching a  documentary called MAKERS: The Women Who Made America. I suggest any woman watch it!! It was a great piece.



Captivating to see the strong feminist views and the conservative views. Like always (which is why I dislike labels) - I fall somewhere right in between.
Some of the notes I took on the documentary that I saw applied to my beliefs were:

• "The thing I dislike about the "feminist movement" is a belief that all woman were slaves to their husbands and families. It was such an attack on our intellect as stay at home moms. Basically it implies that if you have a half of brain in your head you couldn't possibly be happy just changing baby's diaper."
• I also don't believe that every man oppresses women and the marriage is free labor.
• The biggest problem with the feminist movement was that it "taught woman to be victims". NO ONE CAN MAKE YOU FEEL INFERIOR WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT.
• There was a woman who had her political science degree from Harvard and used politics as a hobby after she CHOSE to be a homemaker for 25 years and raise her 6 children. That is HER CHOICE, one that she was educated enough to make. 
• The idea that men and women are interchangeable and to pretend that their aren't any differences is just such a fallacy to me.
• AND my favorite quote: "Yes I have a brain and I have a uterus and they both work!"

Do we deserve to be treated equally? YES. If we want to work equally! Do we deserve the same oppotunities? Absolutely! But we must then follow through with them. Again saying we're a weaker class and dictating that we are wasting our brains if we choose to be home is just ridiculous to me. That is just as much a job and a choice as a CEO, and in fact the decision may be harder. But are we the SAME as men? NO. I know I'm not. But this blog is not really about that its just kinda ties in with our MOMMY GUILT and ever rearing woman debates. Who works harder, who is smarter, whos making a better choice for society. And this only puts us MORE against eachother in my opinion NOT supporting eachother. We dig our own graves. I never really use the term STAY AT HOME MOM or WORKING MOM for myself. Over the 13 years I have been a mother I have been a WHATEVER my family needs at the time MOM. I have tried to work and sometimes they needed me home, and I have tried to be home and sometimes we needed the extra money. FINALLY I have somewhat found my balance of running my own business, a business that I love and having the flexibility to be home. I feel fulfilled as a mother and satisfied in my career. However to be honest sometimes, well often, I feel overwhelmed. Am I working hard enough at my business? Am I spending enough time with my kids? When will I have time to clean my house? Did I cook enough home cooked meals? etc etc etc. These are the thoughts that run through EVERY MOM"S HEAD DAILY. MOMMY GUILT 101.

Well I finally hit a little melt down on my daughter 13th birthday week. It had snowed on a Friday and we drove about two hours away to stay overnight at a hotel for a dance competition. I pampered her out to dinner, movie, ready for every dance, cupcakes, cookies the whole nine. We had a great time and headed home the next night at 9pm. The following morning I woke up trained back to back clients and then drove an hour away for a business meeting and drove back home to meet my family and go out to dinner to celebrate my daughters birthday. After dinner at the restaurant we all planned to come back to our house for cake and ice cream and presents. Well not having been home for three days straight, how would I get my house "company clean"? You know what I'm talking about. There's clean, and then there's company clean. I have never ever ever ever had company over my house and not taken out my yellow gloves and scrubbed my house top to bottom. It's just something I do. I'm not a neat freak by any means but this is what I grew up with and this was customary, no questions asked. My husband being the loving and understanding man that he is could sense my angst about the house and said he would clean up and make sure everything was ready for company. And he did. And I truly appreciate it and I TRY not to sweat the small stuff. But not being able to prepare my home the way I would have liked, really hit me hard. MOMMY GUILT. Was I doing too much that I couldn't do this? Our family came over, the house was clean enough (I'm sure no one noticed) and we had a great night. No big deal but again - it really hit me hard. I know that sounds dramatic - so you didn't get to clean your house - BIG WHOOP - get over it, but at that moment I decided I needed help. I could no longer do it alone.  

The idea that woman can DO IT ALL is the biggest SCAM of allllll time!!!! Yes Elizabeth Hasselback, Yes Kelly Ripa, Yes Heidi Klum... scam scam scam haha okay I'm just naming successful celebrities who make it seem like yes I can have my child, nurse them on set during breaks, kick the dryer closed in my commercial and it is so easy! Well let me tell you it is not! And then you see the woman who are like I dont have any help I do it all alone, well high five to you but guess what I HIT MY WALL. I have more important things in my life than to worry and stress about keeping my house clean. But I NEED a clean house, so what to do? I bit the bullet and hired help! WHY DO I FEEL SO DEFEATED DOING THAT????? If I were a man and business was going so good that I could afford help, that would be a sign of success. But as a woman it feels like I am just not living up to my "wifely/motherly" duties - this is where my conservative side and MOMMY GUILT may kick in a bit.

I talked with a close friend who also happens to be my sons teacher, who I respect and she texted me after I was in the classroom that day and thanked me for helping out. And instead of just saying you're welcome, how did I instinctively respond? "You're welcome I love being there, I wish I had more time to be there more." Really? I couldnt even accept the fact that I am there, every week and that should be ENOUGH. After I sent it I even thoguht: "something is wrong with my brain." lol - true story. Her reply was: "You looked tired today, make sure you are taking some time for yourself." This is the nice way of saying you look like crap! lol But I appreciated her honesty because I was tired... no no I was exhausted!! I'm not going to even list everything that I try to squeeze in because it will sound asinine and like I am complaining and I truly feel blessed so I will just say I WAS TIRED and she had to listen to my vent/meltdown. Finally I "confessed" that I finally broke down and hired a cleaning lady and to my surprise her reply was: "That is a step in the right direction. We can't do it all! I actually just hired mine back." And that text right there somehow made me feel so much better. SUPPORT. UNDERSTANDING. I asked her if it was normal to feel defeated? And she said YES. I LOVE THE HONESTY. But you know what? I am over that after guilt. After my first deep clean of my house it took 3 woman 5 1/2 hours to do my house and that was minus two rooms!!! JEEZE I wonder why I couldn't keep up!! Now I have freed up some stress and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders, not to mention the fact that its motivated me to organize and keep up better, because I dont feel so constantly overwhelmed. Getting help does not mean you're weak, sometimes you have to be strong enough to admit that you need help. That was one of the BEST DECISIONS I ever made. There are few things as satisfying to me as entering a spotless house!! Especially when I didnt have to do it!! I'm not gonna lie. This is gonna be my FAVORITE TREAT!!