Newsweek this week has a series of articles on motherhood today. Specifically, the authors, all women, were trying to address the insanity of the notion of having it all and doing it all and how the “simple” task of motherhood has spiraled out of control. No longer is it enough that you raise your children to be good people, now they must be in a hundred activities and a woman is expected to climb the corporate ladder in between soccer practice, ballet, and French lessons.
As I reflected on these articles a little more, I realized how extremely topical they are for military spouses. Not only are many of us trying to balance families and careers, but we have often found ourselves in the position of being BOTH SuperMommy and Daddy, since the military often takes our spouses yonder and far for training and deployments for months at a time.
One of the things I learned this deployment was a little bit about priorities. Things that were SO important before I learned really didn't matter so much in the grand scheme of things. But taking time to step back from the chaos of every day life WILL help you get through a deployment and isn't such a bad idea for everyone, really.
Initially during a deployment, you face a lot of pressures to do it all. If you keep going and keep busy, you don't have time to think about all your fears and the huge changes you are facing. If you keep doing what you have always done, and manage to take on your spouse's role too, everyone else will think you are fine and you can keep putting on that happy face for the world. Even somewhat official advice from military sources advises you to keep things as much the same as possible; no need to change things at all just because Daddy is over in the sandbox, he would have been gone all day at the office anyway, some will say.
The fact is, military spouses in particular are under tremendous pressure to do it all. But when it comes down to it, that notion of just raising your children to be good people and taking a step back to relax once in a while isn't such a bad concept after all. The key is to remember this: You CAN do ANYTHING - but you don't have to do everything.