Shout-Out to the Moms

Attention Dads: we love you and are grateful for all that you do. My husband works harder than anyone should be legally allowed to for his job, and I am not undermining anything he or any of the other dads do. This post, however, is a shout-out to the moms, and has absolutely nothing to do with the dads and what they do or don’t do. Just give the moms a moment. Did you realize that if you turn ‘mom’ upside down it spells ‘wow’?!

This is not Mother’s Day or any specific day dedicated to giving moms credit for what they do. It is just another day where moms are working unconditionally to keep everything together for their families. The unsung heroes. I think I am extra inspired today because after several months of my kids going into the actual school buildings for school, they are home again for online learning. Sigh.

I have been reading all sorts of statistics and articles throughout the pandemic about how both moms and dads have taken on more domestic responsibility, but moms have taken on more. There are even questions about the longer-term impact this discrepancy could have on advances we have made in gender equality.

I am not going to comment on these statistics, judge anyone’s situation or speculate what might happen going forward. In my own personal situation, even when I had a full-time corporate job my husband and I had the agreement that he goes to work and I do everything else, given both his unusually demanding job and my inability to let a lot of domestic things go. While some days my exhaustion has gone way beyond its peak, I still would not change anything, as it works for us.

Not every household divides the domestic duties in the same way my household does, nor would I want you to, but I know the juggling that moms do…there is always something invading our physical and mental space, leaving us with few moments for ourselves. In the time I have attempted to write this blog, besides the endless calling out from my kids including ‘Mom! Where is my notebook?’ and ‘Mom! Do we have glue?’, I have had to get up multiple times to go downstairs to make my kids lunch, go back upstairs and open the window because my daughter was freaking out about the smell of the lunch I had just made, then go downstairs again to my calling husband because he said that ‘we’ need to fill out some paperwork for our bank. Moms know exactly who ‘we’ really means.

I am not complaining!! But I know you get it. I get you. You are amazing. That is why I am taking a moment to give a shout-out to the superhero moms who all work so very hard. I appreciate you, and even if it doesn’t feel like it, your family does as well.