Busy? It’s Okay Not To Be

I noticed a thing early on in my marriage-hood and mother-hood. Since I didn’t work outside of the house, the home and the kids were my job. And so, when I’m in my house, and there are kids in the house, I should be “working”. The house doesn’t sleep, the kids barely sleep, so my job was 24/7.

So, I should be busy all the time. Right? I should always be doing something. There should always be something on my to-do list. While there may always be something on the list, does that mean I have to be doing it?

I saw in the world, media and even my church circles, a glorification of being busy. If we were busy, that meant we were a good mom, wife, employee etc… We were on top of IT. Whatever IT was. There was even a quote that went around, don’t know who said it, but I want to punch them. It goes something like…

“If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” I’ve seen this quote attributed to everyone from Lucille Ball to Benjamin Franklin.

It means I guess, they are better at managing time and priorities.

I know some people like to be busy. They can’t sit still and always have to be doing. It’s in their genes.

I’m talking about the busyness that you do because you feel guilty otherwise. A pang of guilt that we tell ourselves we should have. You’re a mom, you don’t have time to sit! You should always be planning, cooking, cleaning, wiping, laundering, hugging, consoling, and nurturing. What would our husbands think, our friends, our social circle think if we weren’t “busy”. The “what did you do today?” question comes and you feel like it should be a jammed-packed list. And if you have a bunch of littles, teenagers, etc. it might have been a day filled with things. But what if it wasn’t? What if you didn’t do so much. How do you feel about saying that out loud? I have found that women especially don’t like admitting or declaring that they aren’t busy

If I drop by the home of my 84 yr old mom and she’s reading or watching TV she will STILL say, “oh, I’m just being lazy.”

What would people think if a woman was sitting around? Would they think she were lazy? Underserving of the title of mom and womanhood? What if they do think that? Does it make it true? No, no it doesn’t.

Guess what… we don’t.

I chose a long time ago (but not soon enough) to TRY not to care what “people” including my husband, kids, girlfriends think about my busyness or lack thereof. It’s not easy.

My husband works hard. Always has. So if he’s working hard, I might feel that pang of guilt, of not working as hard as him. I can only play the “I pushed 6 kids out” card so much. Most of the kids are gone, my “job” is not as demanding anymore so I may not be “working” as much as he is.

Is this the beginning of my retirement phase? Do I get to retire?

I have one kid left at home. Now he drives. I felt like this would never happen. And here I am. Not so busy.

Some days it’s all busywork. The cleaning, the cooking, the bill paying, the errands, the mommy-ing the wife-ing. Other days, not so much.

Other days it’s me time. I paint my nails. I go to lunch with friends. Or I get to visit friends who need me. I get to visit my adult kids a few hours away and give them some mom time.

And I love it.

I still have goals. I have all the things I said I’ve wanted to do and never had time. And, I love being home with my kid. I like sending him off to school and being here when he gets home.

Time is not a four-letter word nor does not having enough time need to be glorified. And if you want to do lunch, call me. I have time!!