My husband came home a few weeks ago with Valentine cards in hand and a book for me that he thought I would like. The title of this book? The Naked Mom. So, I thought to myself, I get that it’s Valentine’s Day, but a whole book on the topic of getting me naked? So, he says to me, “I saw this at the book store when I was grabbing coffee and thought of you.” I eyed him suspiciously. “You thought of me? A book titled the Naked Mom… with Brooke Burke on the cover?”
“Well, yeah, I picked it up because it had Brooke Burke on it…and because the title led me to believe she might be naked…BUT I bought it because I thought you would like it…just read it.” and he walked away quickly.
At this point he’s digging a hole for himself and he was smart enough to move on.
So, I read the back of the book, because I had to believe there was something of substance to the “naked mom” or… I would simply figure out that after ten years of marriage, the husband is just plain clueless…
But I must say, I was pleasantly surprised, in spite of his naked Brooke Burke pursuit, he’s actually pretty thoughtful. I’ve only just started the book, but I came across this passage that I had to share:
“Perfection isn’t an ideal, it’s an illusion. I just don’t see life as an escalator, where ten easy steps will land you a perfect body, or perfect marriage, or perfect career. And this whole concept of defining success as the ability to balance everything? Makes sense if you’re a circus seal, but not if you’re a woman. Repeat after me: There is No. Such. Thing. As. Balance.”
~Brooke Burke, The Naked Mom (pg. 5)
YES!
A million times, YES!
Balance is elusive Mamas!
It’s hard to do it all and we put far too much pressure on ourselves to make it all happen, resulting in feelings of frustration, disappointment and leaving some of the more important things in our lives at a disconnect, like our relationships with our children, spouses and friends.
So, keep this in mind and cut yourself a break. Some days, you’ll make strides in your career, other days you’ll be Mom of the Year and then, there will be the “epic fail” days where nothing goes right.
And that’s ok.
Perfection is an illusion.
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Comments
Just stumbled across your blog looking for a review on Burke Williams’ 4-layer facial. I clicked around a bit and found this post. I love it. I’m not a mom, but kids or no kids we all struggle with the idea of perfection. I’m passing your blog along to my sister who has two fabulous kids….
Best wishes.
Ahhh! There goes the title of my blog! I’ve been trying to find balance between career and motherhood this whole time. You mean to tell me it’s impossible? haha But for real, it’s true. You can’t define success as the ability to balance everything. As moms, we’re always trying to do it anyway. I am constantly changing things around with the hope at achieving balance. This will likely be a topic of one of my future posts. Thanks for sharing!
To play devil’s advocate, I think it’s impossible to be perfectly balanced at every moment. Take a snapshot of a tuesday, your kids are screaming and the dog’s tail just broke a glass IN ONE SECOND. One week later, you’re at church and everyone’s behaving IN ONE SECOND. Life is never ALWAYS that bad or that good – balance is what happens in-between those moments. it seems as if we experience an equal amount of good and bad moments and we’re not scarred for life from the bad or have our egos inflated from the good – that’s balance.