Thursdays are my marathon days. If you’re navigating the busy-mom juggling act, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about.
I’m constantly on the go. The morning routine has me prepping breakfast, lunch, and dinner because that is the kind of day it is. I wake everyone up, get them out of the house, and after tackling the school drop-off, I head to Queens to get my dad to physical therapy, take my mom shopping, and do whatever other errands pop up.
Then, I rush back to Westchester just in time to pick up my first-grade daughter from school and hurry straight to gymnastics. After watching her tumble and flip, we are barely home for a half-hour before we head back out for my son’s soccer practice. Dinner is sandwiches made that morning and snacks eaten on the fly. And in between all of this, I’m trying to squeeze in my freelance projects.
Yesterday was a Thursday. My daughter, who had just wriggled out of her school clothes to change into her leotard in the backseat, paused mid-snack and completely surprised me. For the first time ever, she asked: “Did you have a good day, Mommy?” Startled, I caught her eye in the rearview mirror and said, “Yes, I did.” And I truly meant it. My parents hadn’t needed me that day, and after a long winter break, made even longer by the flu and extended by two snow days, I was able to check off a lot on my to-do list. I even managed to meet a friend for coffee. As Ice Cube rapped, “Today was a good day!”
This morning, as I was emptying the dishwasher, my daughter handed me her breakfast dishes and, again, caught me off guard by asking, “Are you happy?” We stared at each other as I repeated, “Am I happy?” She then followed up with this lightning rod, “Do you like being you?” These seemingly innocent questions were not as easy to answer as asking whether I had a good day.
I gave her my full attention. She stood there, waiting expectantly. As busy moms, we get so caught up in our daily routines that we forget to check in with ourselves. Asking these profound questions almost feels indulgent. My defensive reflex immediately kicked in: “Really, who has the time to even think about that?!”
The automatic, socially conditioned response is: “Yes. Yes, I am happy. Yes, I am fine. Yes, I am all good.” We are taught to be relentlessly thankful (hello, gratitude journals!). And while there is always something to appreciate, being thankful doesn’t mean we are happy 100% of the time.
As moms, we need to let our kids—especially our girls—know that. There shouldn’t be an expectation that we are happy all the time. Life is hard. There will be times when we are unhappy, and it is okay to say that out loud. You can be unhappy in a moment and still be deeply thankful for the beautiful things in your life.
So, do I like being me? Yes, I do. Because that means I get to be imperfectly me.
I am happy to be an imperfect person, an imperfect mom, wife, daughter, and friend. That is real, and that is life. I want to normalize sharing when things aren’t going great just as much as we share our highlight reels.
I want my children to be happy being who they are, and I want them to know it’s perfectly okay not to be perfect and not to be happy all the time. There are good days and bad days, and those bad days and the things that make us unhappy pass and do not define us.
