The car moved with the highway, and I along with the car. My thoughts trailed like the curves and turns.

“Where’d you go?” Chase asked.
“Oh, I was just thinking about that woman’s boots. How they’re cute but not something I’d buy.”

My guess is this is when he started to second-guess his question.

“And I was thinking about how we passed each other a lot last year but she never talked to me. You know, when I was depressed and a good day was when I was wearing actual clothes instead of something suitable for crawling back to bed. She talked to me this morning. I wonder if it’s because I’m, well, more put together.”  Seemingly, anyway.

“Women are so good at relationships,” he says. “But there are times, when I’m around a lot of them, it’s also kind of scary.”

To be honest, I can feel the same. And why? It’s a question that plagues my journal. Here’s some of what I’ve wondered.

First, there’s immense pressure in our culture to possess several personalities. We must be Rosie the Riveter when taking care of our homes, flexing our biceps and waging war on dust and clutter.

We’re supposed to mimic June Cleaver for field trips, clad with gluten-free, soy-free, nut-free, good-for-you cookies and an adventurous yet sweet disposition, even while on the bus ride home. Five boys to one chaperone? Not. Happening.

When meeting the girls for dinner we have to be Carrie Bradshaw, steady in our high heals and up-to-date in fashion that looks effortless. Pa-lease. 

When our kids get home from school we are supposed to turn into Mary Poppins, complete with a British accent, powers for tea parties on the ceiling, and a song for practically any circumstance. Now that, would be cool.

By day’s end, we are to greet our husbands as they walk in the door like Kate Upton in an apron. He wishes. (eye roll)

All this to be pulled off without a drop of perspiration or frazzled behavior. Tough enough, smart enough, gentle enough, sexy enough without ever looking like we try. That’s a lot to carry, if you ask me.

Second, we mothers can be ruthless, making every method of parenting or choice for food an opportunity to cast a raised eyebrow.

We are afraid to vaccinate. We are afraid not to.
We are afraid of germs. We are afraid of chemicals, pesticides, and toxins.
We are afraid of public education, private education, the perfect charter school. We are afraid of homeschooling.
Essentially we are just afraid.
We stand in pick-up lines with moms who wear yoga pants. With moms who wear yoga pants and actually work out. I think it’s obvious how I know there are two categories.
Spanking or timeout or both?
Career or stay at home or both?

I think we are hard on each other because we are hard on ourselves. If we fail or think we aren’t meeting the bar of what we see, we feel shame. And since we all walk around like we just woke up with these black eyelashes, rosy cheeks, de-crusted watercress chicken salad sandwiches in our children’s lunchboxes, and marathon legs, that doesn’t take long. Funny thing is we are trying to keep up with each other so we feel like we’re good. Like we belong somewhere in this rat race of outrageous expectations. Like there’s someone out there who will say, “Me too.”
The truth is we have to make a lot of difficult decisions. Little lives have been put in our care and that is both exhilarating and terrifying.

What if we dropped our shoulders with unhinged vulnerability and just said, Yeah, these boots are adorably trendy but my socks have spit-up on them…from, yesterday?
If we knew that other moms let their kids O.D. on Pepsi and cotton candy once in a while, show up to volunteer in the kindergarten class on the wrong day. That some school years are rough and leave us unsure what it means for the future. That no mother, and I mean no mother has completely escaped the scars of pregnancy and birth. In the least we all threw up or had to use Tucks medicate wipes. Yes you did.
How the calendar has sex scheduled. AND a reminder. (Not that I personally know anyone who does that, of course.)

My youngest has been running a fever for the last two days. I’ve held her too-hot body, rubbed my fingers across her clammy forehead, and skipped sleeping. This is when I realize we parents want the same things, to teach well and love ferociously. Illness knows not suits or jammies. Coughs don’t distinguish between uniform vests and regular t-shirts, or yoga pants for shopping and yoga pants for yoga. Our sons and daughters don’t care if their muffin is made with cage-free eggs. They just want to know when they call our name in the middle of the night, we’ll raise the puke bowl and say, I’m here.

Roll up your sleeves and put on your polka dot bandanas, women. We’re in this together. And who we are is enough.

photo courtesy of http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=535413, Flickr

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown