All Mom And No Fun: The Reality Of Being A High-Alert, A-Type Parent

The kids were at school when I grabbed the handful of papers lingering on the car floor. Oh, here was the family tree my second-grader did for Girl Scouts. I hadn't seen it since she'd completed it, so I stopped to read the fun facts she'd jotted down about everyone in our family.

"Adam likes to play Minecraft." "Laura likes to draw." "I like to read." "Dad likes to dance with me." And, the last one: "Mom likes to clean." Oof.

I laughed to myself. I quipped about it in a Facebook status. I assumed she was just an 8-year-old in a hurry to scribble something down, because cleaning clearly isn't my hallmark. (I actually don't like to clean, and I'm afraid that'd probably be apparent if you popped in unannounced.)

Yet, her little offhand remark continued to roll around in my thoughts. Was that really how I seemed to her? Could she think of nothing that I enjoyed? Had I forgotten how to have fun? Was I destined to become one of those grandmas that's impossible to shop for?

"She just has no hobbies," my children and grandchildren will say as they shake their heads sorrowfully and buy me sensible slippers.

The thing is, I take parenting seriously, and I'm afraid that's both my triumph and my failure. It's my job to guide, to correct, to teach, to protect, to discipline. I do this job faithfully, but none of those things make me nor any other parent particularly fun. 

At Christmas Eve Mass, we sat near a family with two lovely and spirited little girls in fancy dresses.

The smaller girl, about three years old, wore a jaunty red bow in her long curls and matching party-perfect red tights and Mary Janes. She simply could not sit still, or even stay in her pew, almost certainly because she was amped up on the singular sparkle and promise of the night before Christmas.

Each time she tapped her little feet into the aisle and bobbed and twirled, all of us nearby smiled indulgently, and even our jovial priest tried to stifle his amusement.

That mom, though. While everyone else saw a charming, adorable preschooler, Mom saw a responsibility, a transgression, a mandate to correct. Her face was tense and unamused. I saw myself, not at that moment in church, but perhaps in too many other moments of motherhood.

I'm sure my children have seen this face on me, and often. Pick up your coats, I scold again, because if I don't they will certainly become everlasting slobs and nightmare college roommates.

Take a shower, clear your dishes, use a tissue, where's your fork?, wash your hands, pick up your socks. (Cleanliness does, in fact, seem to be a recurring part of my ongoing monologue. Points to the second-grader for noticing, I suppose.) Turn off the screen, do your homework, work it out with your sister, have you practiced piano?

I'm forever monitoring, on high alert, trying to shape my three children into responsible people.

Sure, we do lots of mom-kid stuff together, outings and camping and road trips and bike rides and nature walks and much, much more. Never, though, do I stop being Mom. See how we have the walk signal?

I say to the child who won't be walking to school alone for years yet, "Always watch for the turning cars. They have a green light too, and they might not see you." I cannot turn it off, the instinct to impart and, I suppose, to mother.

That's not a bad thing, of course, but it strikes me that I've probably been saving too many of my favorite pleasures for moments when the kids aren't around. I go out on restaurant dates with Daddy, or watch movies or shows with him after bedtime. I get together with friends and laugh.

I treasure my solo time doing Pilates while they're at school or reading books in bed before falling asleep. I blissfully lose myself in my writing work. Although I'm a happy person overall, the kids are not there so much for the most relaxed, easy-laughing side of me.

Maybe I've just drawn too hard a line between on-duty and off-duty. When I'm with the kids, it's a bit like I've punched the clock and I'm at work, mothering.

But that doesn't mean I can't have fun at work — don't all the best jobs have their fun side, and what could be better than working with these three amazing, silly, exuberant little people? They feel my love, yes, but they should also feel my joy.

Not every moment — let's be realistic — but in our house we could all use a little more lightness and laughter, from me in particular. More yeses.

Yes, you can jump at the trampoline place and, yes, I will take my shoes off too and jump as high as I can with you. Yes, I will read you another book. Yes, how fun, let's go out to lunch. Yes, I will try to listen, as carefully as my foot-dragging brain will let me, when you explain the latest Minecraft or Xbox thing.

Yes, I will watch Master Chef Junior and Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? with you, instead of "just finishing up" in the kitchen. (There's that cleaning again.)

Yes, let's squeeze in a board game before bedtime. Yes, I will help you play a little joke on Daddy, and yes, I will help you search Google for silly llama pictures to execute this joke. (That last yes is proof positive, I suppose, that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.)

Years ago, when I was a swoony newlywed still trying to enjoy my new husband's favorite hobby, I took up golf. Years ago, I also quit golfing because it turned out I spent too much time on the course swearing and thinking of the many, many ways I'd rather be spending five free hours.

One bit of surprising wisdom, though, has stuck with me through the years.

"You're gripping too tightly," the instructor told me, as I stood in the tee box with all my muscles tightly tensed, preparing to swing the club and blast the ball towards the green. "Relax your hold a bit, just swing smoothly, and the ball will go farther."

And so it was, incongruously, quite true.

I'm still serious about the responsibility of parenting, and I'm securely holding on to that part of me. At the same time, though, you could say I'm relaxing my grip a little as I swing. With any luck, we'll sail a little higher and farther.

Doesn't that sound like fun?

By Sharon Holbrook for Brain, Child Magazine