Welcome! I'm Cookie's Mom. You can learn all about Cookie and why I blog here: About Cookie's Chronicles. If you're new here, you may want to SUBSCRIBE TO MY RSS FEED. Thanks for stopping by! Pull up a beach chair and be my guest, won't you?

Thursday, June 09, 2011

My Life Without Kids

Today's post was inspired by a writing prompt courtesy of Mama Kat’s Pretty Much World Famous Writers’ Workshop.
Writing Prompt: Describe what you think your life would be like if you had never had kids.
My Life Without Kids

If I had never had a child, what would my life be like? In a word, incomplete.

I can’t say it would have been empty, because I would have filled it with other things. I wouldn’t necessarily have missed it: I wouldn’t have known what I was missing.

My life before kids was long. I had my son late in life, so I’ve had a lot of time to be just me and just a couple. You’d think I would have accomplished more with all that free time!

I never had free time though. I filled it. I was busy.

I am busy still, but my priorities are different.  WAY different.

When I first became a mother, I lamented the number of things I could get done in a day before I had kids. I could run multiple errands in one car trip. I worked, studied, volunteered, socialized, kept the house in relative order and even slept.

I no longer have the time to volunteer my time outside of the home. Now I am a full-time volunteer to a party of one.

Since having a child, I feel like I get nothing done in a day. I look around at the state of chaos my house is in, the pile of letters I need to return, and the bathtub… how I miss the bathtub.

In reality, I accomplish an amazing number of things in a day, including, but not limited to, the following:
Blogging – well, here I am writing! I’ve always wanted to write and now that I am a stay-at-home mom there is just enough time to pursue this a little bit. Thanks to Mama Kat for her inspirations (tired mommies sometimes have the desire but lack inspiration)!

Preparing food – I do it, but I don’t enjoy it (see Lunch should be a four-letter word) and that will never change. I am not much of a homemaker. Sad, but true. When I cook, I do it well. It’s just that I’d rather undergo some uncomfortable form of medical exploration than spend time over a hot stove. I’m not proud of this, but if I am being realistic my skills lie elsewhere… I hope.

Cleaning – blech.

General running of the household – What else can this be called. There are a million little things that fall under this category, including picking up stray socks, cat maintenance (you don’t want to know), cleaning paint off of the kitchen chairs, toy wrangling… You get the idea.

Making sure my son knows he is loved - Hugs. Kisses. More hugs when knees get scraped or scary monsters suddenly appear under the bed. Playing cars and other games that I would sometimes rather not, hour after hour, but do anyway with enthusiasm because it brings the little gaffer joy.

Chauffeur and errand runner – To school, home, to the grocery store, home, to play dates, home, repeat.

And from time to time: party planning, cheerleading, and soccer momming (it’s a new term – run with it).
I still manage to socialize, though admittedly the events are a little different. Before kids I might have gone out for dinner and dancing on my birthday. This year my family and I went to see The Very Hungry Caterpillar at the International Children’s Festival. Party on!

My daily life is just as busy as it was before I had kids. The difference is that, despite how mundane or insignificant my daily tasks may seem, I feel like I have accomplished so much more than in my pre-kid days.

There’s nothing more important or fulfilling than the work of raising a child.

Thank goodness I had the chance to see what life would be like with kids. Just think what I would have missed!

Mama’s Losin’ It

15 comments:

  1. Lovely post ... I'm not a mommy yet (we're hoping to start trying next spring), but I understand that feeling of incompleteness..
    Stopped in from MK

    ReplyDelete
  2. So true. Things may have been more "fun" before kids, but they certainly weren't more rewarding!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. D, thanks for your comments and thanks for visiting! Good luck next year. I hope things work out for you!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Greta. Mommyhood is definitely the most rewarding thing I have experienced. We have different kinds of fun now. We miss the adult fun we used to have, but it will be back someday... right? For now we get to have 'kid fun' - playing in the sandbox, skipping stones and painting faces fun!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I agree with feeling like I've accomplished more. I go to bed bone-tired, but satisfied.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yes, can relate to this heartwarming one too.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great post! I'm still busy as a mom, but it's much more rewarding and fulfilling!

    ReplyDelete
  8. It's funny, there are many activities that I have now done because of my kids. When I take them out I always - as far as possible - join in. So for example, going ice-skating, fruit picking were all because of my children. blog hop friday!
    Nina
    www.ninalazina.info

    ReplyDelete
  9. My daily life is just as busy as it was before I had kids. The difference is that, despite how mundane or insignificant my daily tasks may seem, I feel like I have accomplished so much more than in my pre-kid days.

    A girlfriend and I were just talking about this! Her eldest is three weeks younger than my 20-month-old son, and her youngest is seven weeks old. We were ushering them around the playground when I asked, "Do you ever look back on your pre-parent life and wonder what the heck you did with all that spare time?" We agreed that, new into parenting, we lamented how little time we left . . . but now look at how things used to be and feel that, for all the busyness, our lives were comparatively empty.

    I got one email asking me about my decision to have children in the face of mental illness. I haven't had a chance to reply in full yet, but I sent her a picture of my mom holding my son on my mom's deathbed and remember how he was the only painkiller she wanted. There's always a risk, that I might follow my mom's footsteps to schizophrenia or cancer. But the thing about parenthood is . . . a single day (even one of the bad ones!) of being blessed to usher a little person through life would be worth it. I didn't see it when I found out I was pregnant, but I sure as heck see it now! :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Blogger seems to have lost my previous comments. Sigh.

    @Kimberly, thanks so much! I think that's why the job is so much harder too. We appreciate and want those rewards and we work hard to get them!

    @Nina, thanks for stopping by. I am also enjoying my 'second childhood'!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Deborah, thanks as always for sharing so openly. Your points are so important for us moms to keep in mind. As we face various decisions about career and other interests, it helps to remember the 'death bed' question:

    When I am breathing my last breath, what is it that I may regret? What is it that I will be most proud of? What will I be the most thankful for?

    For certain, we will think back on our relationships and the lives of those that we have loved. If we can keep the nurturing of this love as our priority through life, then, not only will we reap the rewards during our lifetime (I believe that the more we love, the more that love comes back to us), we will also have no regrets at the end.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Well said! Thanks for stopping by whiteheads monthly menu. I'm here to follow you back and so happy I stopped in. I enjoyed this post!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thank-you so much, and thanks for the follow back!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hi! Visiting you from the weekend blog hop - great posts :-) Please like/join/follow me back at www.fourlittlemonsters.com - keep up the great blog!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thanks for visiting, EJ! Followed you back. Great concept and great blog!

    ReplyDelete