Family Du Jour

 Until today, the term “du jour” always meant “of the day”.  Like the “Soup Du Jour”…mmm…I could really go for Panera’s Broccoli Cheese soup right now!!!  It’s amazing and just thick enough to stick to your bread with all its cheesy awesomeness having a party in your mouth…but I digress. 

Today I learned a new term. “De Jure”, referring to a family headed by a female without any contribution from a male.  That’s right, today I learned that I have a De Jure Family.  Who knew someone had defined this and gave it a snazzy name??  Pretty cool…and not just because of the name.

 My friend, Melanie, and I were discussing this very topic recently.  You see, if I was a young widow fifty years ago, my life would be vastly different than it is as a young widow today. Young…I use that term very loosely here, but it makes me smile.  Much of this difference is due to changes in our society and the advancements women have made.  This is not a post about the merits of feminism, but really, this is huge!  In 1970, as a widow with children, there would have been VERY limited opportunities for me to be able to financially support my family unassisted.  Statistics tell me that I most likely would have remarried very quickly in an effort to provide my children with the stability needed to remain out of poverty and give them a life of opportunity.  Today, this is very different…thank goodness!

 I never considered myself to be a feminist.  As a conservative, married woman for most of my adult life, I didn’t see the relevance.  We were a single income family.  I stayed home with my children, with the exception of a few part-time jobs here and there, until a few years ago when I entered the workforce full time.  I didn’t have a spouse who controlled the finances or told me that my place was in the home.  These were choices that I made.   When people would ask me as a child what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would always say, “a mom”.  And really, that was my dream.  I wanted to be a mommy…more than anything else in the whole wide world.  I wanted sweet babies to love and care for, and I wanted to stay at home to care for them…and I did.  When my oldest two were babies, I sat in my living room one afternoon, wearing my husband’s long johns, nursing my new little girl, and enjoying a few moments of relative calm while my two-year-old watched Mary Poppins for the third time that day (yes, I used the tv as a baby sitter), and I thought to myself, “I have the BEST life!”  It was literally my dream come true.  Sure, the dishes were piled high, there was tons of laundry that needed done, my floor was covered in toys, and the calm was certainly going to be temporary, but in that moment, that was the life I had dreamed of…being a mommy.

Once the babies were asleep, I would do the dishes, fold the laundry, pick up all the toys, and clean the house so it looked like a magazine, just in time for my husband to come home to a clean, quiet house and we could spend time together before the baby woke up and needed to be fed again.

I was happy.

 No, things wouldn’t always be that way.  It wasn’t long after that blissful afternoon that my son was diagnosed with autism and my baby became chronically sick and screamed all. the . time. My family would have to move in order to get services needed for my son, and the fairy tale life I enjoyed would be altered in ways I couldn’t imagine.  Despite all of this, I wouldn’t have changed one single thing, because that would mean giving up my dream.

Through all of the moves, upheaval, diagnoses, surgeries, treatments, terrible commands, the rigors of buying and selling homes, the chaos of raising special needs children (and all that entailed), therapies, schools, and efforts to make a home wherever we landed…I was happy.  No, my dream did not look the way I had imagined, but it WAS my dream.  And I clung to it. 

I home schooled my children for several years, and everything in my life revolved around them.  Everything.  The crazy part is, I loved it.  They were my life.  Being their mother was my greatest and most satisfying joy.

Never, through all of those years, did I ever feel oppressed or like I couldn’t do anything and everything I desired.  Yes, I made sacrifices.  Sacrifices I did not recognize, sacrifices I didn’t care about at the time, sacrifices that hurt, and some sacrifices I never should have made.   But they were all sacrifices I was willing to make to get what I wanted.   In my mind, this was the “ideal” family.

Unfortunately, I woke up from my dream.

Disclaimer:  What I am about to say is in no way meant to discount anyone else’s experiences, desires, or life goals.  This blog is written purely from my own perspective and my own experiences…which if I’m being honest, have not been ideal, by any definition. 

The truth is, my family is anything but ideal.  For sure, if you scroll my Facebook page you will see a lifetime of happy, smiling faces, a family knit together by love and kindness, full of fun vacations, time spent gardening, going on fun outings, lots of hiking…and nothing negative.  With the exception a few political posts and maybe a couple of ranty post when I suffered a moment of weakness.  Let me just say it…my Facebook page is a lie.  There.  It’s out there.  But I’m guessing there are a few of you reading this who share the same lie.  Only the best pictures. Only the happy moments.  Only the fun times.  Yes, there are some who live their lives openly on social media, but honestly, it makes me super uncomfortable when couples air their dirty laundry on Facebook, or when friends start fighting and trying to make each other look bad.  BTW, you both look bad.  Them for being a jerk and you for sharing it.  My point is that for the most part, everyone likes to look their best to the world, and unfortunately, the more I learn about women, the more I know that their lives look much, much different than what they share with the world.  And that’s ok.

But just for a minute, I just want to talk to the real you.  The you that you don’t share with the world.  The you that screamed at her kids today, and no mommy, I’m not talking about raising your voice and using a stern tone.  I mean screamed.  Screamed so loud and with so much energy you wondered if you could self-induce a stroke…and then felt so much guilt and regret that the weight of it made it hard to breathe, and you cried alone in your closet.  The you that is so tired you literally fell asleep peeling potatoes because it was the first time you stopped moving since five-thirty this morning.  The you that had to hold two sobbing children after you broke the news to them that they could not get married to each other when they grew up, and this was just weeks after you had to break the news to them that they were not twins.  The you that had to tell your son that, in fact, he could not store his dirty underwear in a shoebox in the closet.  The you that finally sat on the couch to enjoy the quiet of nap time, only to see your child run naked through the yard past the living room window.  The you that had to go to Home Depot later that day and buy window locks…and install them by yourself so it never happened again.  The you that didn’t believe your child was choking on a hot dog until you had to do the Heimlich maneuver on them in Target to save their life as the cashier stood there with his mouth hanging open in shock. The you that ran a stop light today because you had a long list of all the things you need to get done running through your mind, knowing that you will never make it if one single thing doesn’t fall into place perfectly, and also knowing there was no chance everything would fall perfectly into place.  The you that struggles, unsuccessfully, to manage everyone’s schedule.  The you that forgot to pick up your kid from school, or made them be the last one standing outside…more than once.  The you that fed your child chocolate cake for dinner because you didn’t have it in you to drag three wily kids to the grocery store and that’s all you had left.  The you that has envisioned bouncing your spouses head off the computer screen to get his attention. The you that felt part of your soul rip away as your child told you they hate you and that you ruin everything good.  The you that was up at two-thirty this morning holding your sobbing teen suffering from a painful break up.  The you who accepts that rolled eyes, bad attitudes, and snarky words are legitimately the only forms of communication your fourteen-year-old has left in her body.  The you that installed a security system so you could know if your teenager left in the middle of the night.  The you that has felt with every ounce of your being that you are a failure as a mom, as a wife, as a friend, and a failure at adulting.   The you that has wondered, on more than one occasion, if an adult human being can actually die from emotional neglect.  Yes, I am talking to you.

You see, that’s the real me.  Those are all real things, that I really did, that really happened, and I have really felt, that I never share.  That is not the life that I dreamed of.  That’s my reality.  And I want to tell you, friend, that it’s ok.

No one lives their dream life the way they imagined it would be.  Life is HARD!  Babies are born with disabilities. Children come with personalities and problems we could never have imagined.  They get sick, and sometimes they die. Sometimes our teenagers hate us, or rebel, or make terrible decisions that will affect their entire life.  Sometimes there just isn’t enough money to support your family and drastic changes need to happen just to survive.  Spouses are not always good…sometimes they leave…sometimes they die…sometimes we need to leave them.  There is no ideal family, there is just real families.  Families that come in all shapes and forms, from all different backgrounds and cultures, in every income bracket, with all different kinds of kids and parents. Broken families.  Dysfunctional families. Families with innumerable problems, some that we cannot even allow ourselves to imagine.  That is the “Family De Jour”, the family of today, the real family.

The good news…no, the GREAT news, is that your kids are going to be ok.  YOU are going to be ok.  Many of the most famous, influential people that have ever lived DO NOT come from the “ideal” family.  No, they don’t.  In fact, four US Presidents were raised by single mothers. An Olympic Gold Medalist, and many famous actors and singers were as well.  Even more come from families that lived in poverty and did not have access to good schools or nice neighborhoods, including many professional athletes, the founder of Starbucks, and Oprah Winfrey.  This doesn’t even touch on the number of influential people who grew up in homes that were abusive or had parents dealing with addiction. 

 I’m not saying that having a different type of family than the Cleaver’s means your kids are going to grow up to be rich and famous, what I am saying is that having a different type of family in NO WAY affects whether or not your child can grow up and chase their dreams and become whatever they are willing to work for to reach their fullest potential…regardless of their circumstances!

So rest easy mama, your kids are going to be fine.  Teach them well, provide them with the opportunities that you can, let them have experiences to teach them important life lessons, and then stand back and let them be captains of their own ships and directors of their own lives. You got this!

But LISTEN UP, this the most important thing!  TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!!!  You are a better mother, a better wife, and a better human being when you spend time taking care of what you need.  No matter how difficult life becomes, find something that you love, and do it!  For yourself!  You need it as much as you need air to breathe.  Whether that means taking a long bath, spending thirty minutes reading that book sitting on your night stand calling your name, writing, finishing that craft you started six months ago, or singing along to your favorite Pandora station even though everyone in your family hates it and you have a voice that could make the angels cry in anguish…just do something that you love and that brings you joy.  YOU deserve it and you NEED it!!

Now go hug that Family Du Jour running around your house causing a ruckus, live your dream in in all of its messy reality, and find joy.