There are so many kinds of moms to be, so many endless possibilities. The cool mom, the together mom, the messy mom. The mom of multiples, the mom of an only child. The working mom, the stay-at-home mom. And, perhaps the most allusive of all moms: the truly happy mom.
Our culture loves to talk about happiness. What is it? Who has it? How do you know when you’re really happy and how do you know when you’re not? As a mom, I feel like this is extra true when you’re raising kids. It can be so easy to get caught up in the happiness of your children that you may not even take the time to get caught up in your own vibes.
I’m always on a quest to create and nurture a genuinely democratic household. For me, democracy is happiness. In practical, day-to-day terms, this means a home in which everyone does their part, everyone supports everyone else, and at the end of the day, we all can feel reasonably solid about how we lived our hours. Does it happen every day? Of course not. But the goal is that it does happen more often than not.
One way I have found to successfully foster a real lived experience of happiness in my home is to break down every parenting responsibility and split them evenly with my husband. And when I say break down, I mean it: you guys don’t even want to know how many hours-long conversations we’ve had over our kitchen table, writing down everything that goes into caring for our one (just one!) child, discussing appointments and education and lessons and activities and friendships and pick-up and drop-off and who will do what, when, where, why, and how.
These conversations are not always easy, and we have both had our feelings hurt. But I think these conversations are always necessary, and I know that they’re what makes happiness work for us, and work for me.