I was in a training the other day and the speaker made a statement that made me think. He was talking about how everything we do in life should be measurable. Goals, actions, thoughts, endeavors, etc. It was a blanket statement, but it got my wheels turning. Can motherhood be measured?
Can we realistically measure everything?
Some things in life are measurable. Goals, yes, should be measurable and attainable. Career-related topics, yes. Even chore charts and cleaning charts–measurable. But where does this end? How can I measure myself as a mom? Is this even a thing? Is this something I should do? Or should I avoid it?
As I said, it got me thinking.
Measured motherhood?
I have been a mom for a bit now. My oldest is a few months shy of 20 years old. There isn’t a chart or a graph that I can use to measure the last two decades, and to be honest, some days I measure my success by the fact that we all made it to the end in one piece.
My boys are athletes. There have been times I have measured myself based on their performance on the field. Or, I have found myself measuring myself based on my kid’s academic performance or by how clean my house is–or is not in many cases.
With all my kids, I have at times measured myself based on their successes or failures. But is this fair to any of us?
I think that making everything we do measurable is a misstep–one that we can easily fall into. Some things should be measurable, but others can and should not be.
I don’t think that “mom-ing” can be measured. I don’t think that there is a scale that can capture the amount of love we have for our children or a scale that can fully measure our thoughts or actions when it comes to our kids.
We need to be careful not to measure ourselves as moms because we and our children are as human as can be. Those measurements can be very misleading from one day to the next. Imagine, we clean our house while no one is home or napping. It is clean. Everything in its place. This is a measurable success. Now, consider that our family comes home or wakes up and all the work we’ve done is quickly undone. That measure we just took has now changed.
Most days, the only thing I want to focus on measuring is how full my coffee cup is. Not measured motherhood.
The next question I had to ask myself was: what scale am I measuring myself against? And to me, this sounded a lot like comparison. And comparison is a trap that we need to avoid at all costs.
There are no scales or charts that can tell if we are headed in the right direction with this mom thing. We can’t measure if our kids will walk the path envisioned for them. We can not compare our measures with those near us because moms and kids are so individual.
At the end of the day, the only thing I know as a mom is that the love I have for my kids is immeasurable.
The hopes and dreams I have for my kids cannot be put on a scale.
Moms, we need to take ourselves off the scale and remove the pressure of needing to measure ourselves. We need to measure what we can and should in life, but know that we, moms, are not on that list.
The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of ABQ Mom, its executive team, other contributors to the site, its sponsors or partners, or any organizations the aforementioned might be affiliated with.
