The following is a guest post from momAgendaCOMM blogger Kim-Marie Evans.
This post was supposed to be an advice column on how to say no. But I’m writing it from under a pile of unpaid bills, this article (my first as a Council of Media Moms member) is late, I’m paying my oldest child to coerce my younger ones to bed. All because I can’t say no. I have four children, isn’t that enough proof of my pushover nature?
I want to say no.
I’m trying, but it’s hard.
Why is it so difficult?
I think as moms we all want to please. Many of us live in fear that if we don’t sign our child up for soccer by the age of four…and get them on a select team shortly after that… well, I don’t know what happens but it must be bad or we wouldn’t all be so scared, right?
I feel particularly guilty about my “yes” nature because I am modeling it for my children. They also believe that they HAVE to be on every elite team, getting A’s in all the honors classes and simultaneously saving the world with their own charity.
I feel like someone started an awful rumor and somehow, we all believe it.
If we don’t do it all, we feel like failures as moms. Add coaches into the mix who think they are running an Olympic training team, schools who give you the stinky eye for taking your child out for a trip, overachieving dads who don’t drive 15 carpools and it’s a recipe for disaster.
Things I want to say no to:
• Two lacrosse practices and three games in one week. My daughter is a seventh grader, it’s not the high school varsity team, but at her age the only team she can play on is travel. Why can’t she just play?
• Hours of homework in elementary school. Studies show that it has no correlative effect on grades. Why do we do it? Teachers can’t say no either. We all need to say no to the madness.
• The crazy flag football coach who turns every practice (for 8 year olds) in to a multi-hour affair complete with a “signature play” for every child.
• My children who demand to be driven to the bus stop which is a four minute walk. Oh, and to be kept in a toasty car while they wait.
• My husband who insisted he had to buy new underwear for his business trip this week because laundry hadn’t been done. I guess doing the laundry never occurred to him.
Well, this needs to be the end of the post because my daughter just quit her short lived job as “mom”. I’m not kidding, she just announced it was “too stressful” and left.
Maybe if we all say no together, they’ll begin to listen.
Kim-Marie Evans is a member of the Council of Media Moms at momAgenda. She is a lifestyle blogger who writes about motherhood and travel on her personal blog The Luxury Travel Mom. You can always find her on Twitter.
This certainly hits home for me…we all have good intentions – we want to be great at all we do and sometimes, it’s just too much…we do need to learn to say no and stick to it!
I just signed on for adopting a pair of ducks for the weekend from my child’s preschool. I kid myself with thinking I am the Queen of No.
Thanks for this post.
I volunteered for the Relay for Life in 3 surrounding counties, because I didn’t want to disappoint the people who asked. I have signed up for multiple volunteer activities for my kids’ school even though I really do not have the time or resources, because my kids gave me the “But all the other moms will be there” speech. Some call me Sarah, but you can call me Doormat. You aren’t alone…still trying to say no, each and every day.
Just last night, my daughter said with a straight face that I “should be one of those moms who volunteers for everything at school….” It hit a nerve. Bottom line: I do say “no,” as often as I can, but when other people point it out to me, especially my kids, it hurts! It’s like we are in some competition in which the most involved and busy mom with the most involved and successful and bright kids wins a prize. The problem is, there is no trophy at the finish line.