M. Suzanne Terry

This message is brought to you by my mother.

Growing up, we had three square meals a day, and most of them were at home. Driving through for burgers and eating out were special treats that might have happened once or twice a month.  If we had cookies, they were homemade. Even when she worked full-time, we had hot, balanced meals on the table.

She also kept an immaculate house.  At one of my birthday parties, we sat on the kitchen floor to have our cake.  One of my friends dropped a bite on the floor, as small children are wont to do. When she picked it up and tried to hand it to her mom, her mom said, “Just eat it.”  Then her mom laughed and turned to my mom.  “This is probably the only kitchen floor I’d let my daughter eat off of.”

I am not my mother.

I know that she had help.  She and Dad split the domestic responsibilities pretty evenly, and she made it clear to my sister and me that we were expected to pull our own age-appropriate weight.  The flipside is that she had three other people in the house making messes and requiring sustenance.  Show of hands – how many of you know that toddlers (or twelve-year-olds, for that matter) make way more of a mess than they clean up? So while she had more help than I do, she also had a lot more to do.

I know that it is possible to have a full-time job, a clean house, and a healthy, affordable diet, and it is possible to have all of that and still have time to read, watch TV, and have a social life.  I know it’s possible, because I spent the first eighteen years of my life watching my mother do it. I also know, having been brought up by this superwoman, how to do it.

On this Mother’s Day, I honor what Mom modeled and taught me.  Today, I start my three-month series on getting it together.

Tomorrow, I will post the need, and Tuesday, I will lay out the plan.

Wish me luck!