Moms, it can sometimes feel like we have no life. We hardly have time to shower or cook, much less pursue a hobby. Tasks clutter our to-do list and the kids clamor for attention. We can’t always follow common advice to get away from the kids once in a while. And we know we should have a life beyond kids but can’t seem to figure out how.
Yes, it’s important to balance parenthood with other aspects of our lives. We get a break from mommy madness, and we build the ubiquitous village to raise our kids.
Why you should have a life beyond kids
Though well-deserved reasons, there’s one crucial reason to have a life beyond kids.
Our kids will grow up.
You see, most of us reading this blog are parents of young children. We haven’t entered the years of raising tweens, much less teenagers. Many of us have yet to find ourselves saying goodbye to the motherhood as we know it.
But we don’t have to look too far ahead to realize that our kids will no longer need us the way they do right now.
Look at your toddler, who, not too long ago, you had to carry around and spoon-feed mashed baby food. Now he’s comfortable waddling on his own two feet and feeding himself blueberries.
Kids grow up too fast. And their goal? To be as independent as possible. That same toddler will one day shy away from holding your hand. He will want to do his own homework, make his own bed, and even cook his own meals.
As I say in my book, You Are Enough:
“As long as the days can feel, those moments when you realize you’re not kissing your child’s feet any longer or they’re too big to carry in your arms are a blunt reminder of how quickly the years go by.”
As a teenager, he’ll turn to you for guidance less and less as he begins to feel more confident in his abilities. He’ll become a young man, different from the baby who once depended on you.
But guess what? This is a good thing.
I’ve long since believed that the number one job of a parent isn’t to make kids happy or confident. Nor is it to provide them with a comfortable future, or to widen their horizons. All worthwhile endeavors, but the most important job we have is this: to raise future adults.
These future adults won’t rely on us to function and have a normal life. Instead they’ll turn to us for support and company.
Hopefully we’ll even have a close relationship with them into their adulthood.
And so they will be grown adults whose lives will no longer be the sole focus of yours. Your grown kids might not even live near you any longer. They might move to a different city, state or even country.
They might not have children of their own. Your daily life may not include your adult children nor any future grandkids.
Now imagine yourself at that moment: What will your life be like when your youngest child has reached adulthood?
She may have moved out of your home and into her own apartment. She’s taken down the posters in her old bedroom and purchased her own pots and pans. She doesn’t need or want your constant attention. What will your life be like?
Will you have lost a sense of yourself, having no one to fret over? Will you still have friends, especially since your social life revolved around your kids? What will be your hobbies? Will you hover over your adult children just as you used to do when they were in your home?
Or will you give them the space they need to be capable adults? In this modern world, it’s so easy for us to focus on our kids. We prize them so more than any generation in the past ever had. We don’t let them get bored, and we sacrifice so much for their benefit.
That’s why it’s even more important that to have a life beyond kids. The years they’ll need us the way they do now will diminish.
Eighteen years seem like eons from the starting line, but it’s a fraction of a life. A short lap compared to the length of your lifetime.
We’ll always be mothers. I still rely on my own in ways I can’t rely on other people. Yet I know (and so does she) that I’m independent now, and have been for several years. And I hope my kids know they can always turn to their mom well into their old age.
But we can’t focus our entire lives on our kids. At some point they won’t need us in the same way. How then will we fill our time and our days when the rattles, school bags and the college applications are gone?
Wear your mom badge proudly. Then add to that your other badges: Hobbies that are solely your own (even this parenting blog of mine is still kid-related). Friendships that can continue even with the absence of children. A solid marriage. A cause.
Because one day your two-year-old will speak in complete sentences. She’ll lean how to dress herself and listen to music you won’t understand. She’ll make friends without your help and choose her own college courses.
And she’ll grow into an adult much too quickly, no matter how inevitable you knew the time would come.
So the next time you feel guilty for leaving the kids to be with friends or exercise, remember you’re doing a good thing. Both for yourself now, and in the many years down the line.
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It’s so easy to forget that being a mom is only one part of our lives. I was a person before I became a mother and will be after they’ve grown. I started writing daily to have a hobby and it’s really added to my life in ways I never imagined. My husband has always been a strong advocate of this concept and I admire him for that. It’s helped him retain who he is as a person while being an amazing dad.
Jenny that’s awesome you have the support and example in your husband. Mine is the same. He’s real big on having at least a little bit of time for his hobbies lest he gets lost in daddy duties.
I do feel like I’ve stopped doing a lot of the things I used to do because this season of my life is so focused on the kids. I still work full time though, so I feel like I’m making the right decision to spend most of my free time with my kids, they really do grow up so fast and they won’t WANT to spend all weekend with me very soon! That being said, I do try to make a point to exercise regularly (for my own sanity and health) and get out with my husband and my friends occasionally, to keep those important relationships healthy.
I also find work to be a bit of a breather. I’m able to focus on other things and do so uninterrupted. I was just talking to a friend about this and how she really looks forward to going in to work because the work made her a happier mom than when she was home with her son all day. Still, I think even moms who are home with their kids all day can strike a balance. There are evenings and sitters and times when the kids nap, and even simple things like reading can help balance the kids out.
Everything you wrote is true and yet I find myself wanting to spend all my free time with Dylan. I justify it by telling myself I work fulltime and therefore on my weekends and all that, I want to spend it with him. BUT! You’ll be proud! Last Friday I went out to dinner and drinks with a couple of girlfriends of mine. I hadn’t done that since before Dylan so it was really necessary. Baby steps! lol
I would say that work counts as something not kid-related! Like I mentioned to Sarah above, work is my breather. It’s the chance I get to focus on something completely uninterrupted, and it’s something I have long after the kids are out of the house. And good for you for going out with your girls! After over a year too, I bet it was much needed!
Yay! I think work counts too! So glad you approve because I was beginning to feel like a loser. It’s space away and it really does reset the mind. Don’t tell my boss but I actually enjoy my job ;x
AMEN! My mom was always the type to be a martyr for her children; my brother and I were her entire life. And then when we moved out, got jobs, etc., she seemed a little lost. These days she’s “finding herself” again in being a grandma to my son, but it’s a great reminder for me to continue to nurture my life outside of my role as mother.
Oh wow Katie, talk about a lesson learned. I’m glad though that your mom has found herself and has a new role being grandma. My mom worked and had her own interests when I was growing up so she seems to have transitioned our adulthood quite well.
It makes me sad but it’s so true. One day my husband will be my only housemate..and maybe some animals. We don’t have babies to have babies. That stage is so short! And yet it’s so hard when you’re pregnant or in the stage, to realize that it will end. You made a human – who will be adult for most of their life.
I think about those days Tamara and how one day it’ll just be me and my hubs. There’s no guarantee that there’ll even be grandkids. That’s why it’s so important for me to maintain a solid relationship with him as well as not lose sight of my non-kid related interests.
Well said! I think that having lives outside our children makes us better role models.
That’s true, MaryAnne. Being well-rounded shows a great example to our kids as well.
I just got done reading Raising Up Bebe and how French parents strive to teach their children how NOT to be completely attached to them. They teach them at evening hours are for the grown ups, and they can play in their rooms instead. Heck, by age 3, the kids are going off for a week with teachers to the countryside. Could you even imagine that happening here??? Anywho, your post comes at just the same time I’m thinking about all this — having a separate life from my kids. Working full time outside the home makes it a lot easier, and on weekends, while I try to spend quality time with them, I also give them time to play independently. Ironically, my daughter can do this longer than my 3 yo ;). Anywho, I’m doing the following things to reclaim me: blogging, photography, reading, exercising.
Haha yeah I can’t imagine sending a 3-year-old away with his teachers for a week. But I get the gist. I read the book too and I was totally taken with the non-obsessive parenting and how important it was for parents to have a life of their own.
Definitely going to work adds a bit of balance. And yes, so does letting them play by themselves. They do quite well on their own with supervision instead of 24/7 hovering.
I do have a tween and a school-age kid, 10 and 7 yrs. They don’t physically need me as much anymore, especially the older one. And I feel like we are open emotionally with one another so that it’s not the quantity of time I spend being available to them that matters, simply that they know I’m available at all. Long story short – I like what you’re saying. A decade of motherhood and I’m getting more time to myself and it’s exciting to think what I’m going to do with that time and how to encourage my kids to take care of themselves. Just today I was teaching the 10yo laundry skills! Moms not doing your laundry forever.
Katy you have no idea how happy I would be to be in that stage lol. Of course I say this now, but I’d love for my kids to entertain themselves so much that we’re given a bit of our lives back again 🙂 But just as I’m saying this I already know I’ll look back on this stage and wish they were toddlers and preschoolers again clamoring for my attention!
And yes, laundry skills… talk about one chore crossed off your list!
Such important advice!!!
I really enjoyed this post. 🙂 It’s crazy easy to get so wrapped up in our children than we don’t focus on us too. While their childhoods go super fast (!) we also can’t ONLY be mothers during those childhoods. I have felt such a renewed sense of purpose since beginning to blog a few years ago.
I’m so glad to hear you’ve found an awesome avenue to express yourself that’s solely for you, Valerie! It’s so important to have that sense of self so that when that time comes (however gradually or suddenly we realize it) when our kids no longer need us as much as they used to, we’ll be better prepared to face those days.
Great suggestions. Children also need to know that even though you love them, your life does not revolve around them. Children are watching parents and want their parents to be happy as well.
I love that, Betty. It’s so true—our lives are much more than being parents to kids.
I’ll admit I definitely need more activities that I are just my own. I would never want to be a parent that hovers over their adult children. My biggest goal for my kids is that they will be independent as adults.
Yes me too Melissa. I see too many young adults still reliant on their parents for things they should probably have known for a while now!
I so enjoyed reading this, and needed to hear it! My daughter will be two at the end of the year, and since she was born I have rarely made time for myself. Mostly due to that mom guilt we all feel! THANK YOU for this post! And thank you for your e-mail newsletters! My husband and I find so much inspiration in parenting from them!!
Hi Michele! Isn’t it crazy how quickly our lives change to focus on our kids 24/7? I mean it’s definitely a big part of our lives, rightly and necessarily so. But it’s so easy to use every spare moment for our kids even when it doesn’t need to be that way.
And thank YOU for your kind words! Seriously. It totally made my day and something I’ll read and go back to when I need a pep talk 🙂 I’m so glad you and your husband enjoy the blog and newsletters!