I'm Lindsay Ferrier, a Nashville writer with a passion for family travel, exploring Tennessee, and raising kids without losing my mind in the process. This is where I share my discoveries, along with occasional deep thoughts, pop culture tangents and a sprinkling of snark. Want to get in touch? Use the CONTACT form at the top of the page.
December 15, 2008
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I was reading a most excellent new blog find today when I came across this passage, which perfectly describes how I want to feel about being a mother…
Clean. And the papers and books and Legos multiply. Cook. And scrub and repeat and repeat and repeat. Wash the clothes. Fold the clothes. Stack the clothes. And watch them migrate back to the laundry basket. A mother’s work is but sand etches; the next wave washes it all away.
But don’t grains of sand carve stone?
Wow. Pretty profound, don’t you think?
It’s a lesson I need to be reminded of, every time I get frustrated with how quickly my freshly-mopped floors get filthy again, the fact that the counters I cleared half an hour ago are once again covered in bits and pieces of everyone else’s day, and the way the carpets I paid to have professionally steamed two weeks ago today have at least a dozen new stains that need removing.
I’m getting frustrated even writing this!
Yet I think it’s important that I make the effort to keep my home in reasonable order. My children certainly don’t notice each squirt of 409 I spray or any one of the endless pieces of laundry I fold. I do hope, though, that the sum of all these seemingly infinite parts will be that they one day remember a mother who cared enough to keep them clean and fed and happy, without them even noticing all of the hard and often extremely dull work that went into the end result. And I have to come to terms right now with rarely even being thanked for it.
I’m not doing it for thanks, and I think all mothers need to remember that. We’re doing it to shape our children into loving, caring adults who will some day do the very same work for their own children, and who, if we do it right today, will do that work tirelessly, with love, and without complaining, just as they remember us doing it for them.
This post originally appeared on Parents.com.
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