“Why don’t you just write ‘sucker’ on a post-it note and stick it on your forehead?” a concerned friend asked me last year. I had once again said that dreaded three-letter word the one often invoked by mothers who do too much: Yes.
This was such a great cause, one after my own heart, and one that would help not only my own family but also others.
Some day that will be a badly written song, with the harmony sung by my family in a minor key gone flat. It's the same song, fifteenth verse, could be better, but it's gonna be worse.
The first verse began when my daughter was in preschool. I wanted to do it right and became ultimate room mother: chaperone for every field trip, substitute for sick teachers, janitor for messes, and helper for any teacher who needed it. This increased steadily for two years. It was so gratifying to help the kids with discipline problems, who needed extra attention and a little loving touch. I was making a difference in their lives.
Suddenly, one day I realized who needed me the most: my own children.
When we began to homeschool, I committed to giving my children the individual attention they needed and to avoiding that same mistake.
But as they grew older and got busier, all these opportunities abounded. They were so good, after my heart, would help my own children and help others and I would have a blast making them work.
Organize something new? That's what I do best! A new file bucket gives me chills. A database can bring ecstasy. Mail merges nearly drive me to a swoon. What if we make this project bigger, and bolder, and double what it's been before? Then it's a greater adventure.
I became the mom who can't say no. Faster than a speeding concert, ready to save an organization with a single swipe of a computer keyboard, able to demolish tall obstacles in a single bound.
Of course reality smacked my face as my children's needs swung at my backside. Yes, the events were organized, the mail merges took, and things went OK.
When I struggled to carve five minutes out for my own children, while facing a deadline, I realized I had neglected them for an entire day while they quietly helped me help others. I hadn't made sure they had what they needed, and we hadn't had a single conversation all day that wasn't service-related.
They had had no time to be children. I had had no time to be a mom. Forget completely about my paying attention to my husband, other than to ask him to make a mad dash home for half the stuff I forgot.
My own children shouldn't have to take a number to talk to their mother and get my attention. If it starts to happen, it's my fault because I'm the mom, and I have to say no.
This is not why God called us to homeschool.
So, yesterday, when I was asked to take on a large project the biggest of my life with the kind of challenges that make me tremble with excitement and dream of newer, bigger mailing address labels, I said a two-letter word instead of a three-letter word.
No.
Maybe with a little more practice I can peel that post-it off my forehead.
Copyright 2006 by Mary Biever. All rights reserved.
Mary Biever is a homeschooling mother of two who publishes encouragement articles and runs Encouragement Workshops For Today's Families.
This article was adapted from one of her columns.