As a MOM, do you ever have a bit of an identity crisis? Where do you fit in? What do you seem to stand for?
Last week, an old friend of mine from my days working at MTV e-mailed me, saying he was in from LA, and his buddies were having lunch at the Spotted Pig downtown and would I come meet them. When I received this e-mail, I was dropping my daughter off at school. I looked around at the “other” moms and wondered who in this grou would even consider lunching at the Spotted pig with some ‘rock n’ roll MTV boys.
it would be great to see my friend, show him pictures of the girls and maybe even net-work with his buddies in the business. But…it was way downtown, there were 20 other things I should be doing….I am a mother of two and have an endless list of things required of me. Next thing I knew, I saw a cab with its lights on. I told the driver,” West 4th street, please, to the Spotted Pig.
By the time I arrived, my friends were on their second bottle of wine. What was I doing there? I I am a mom, I should not be downtown for lunch at a place called The Spotted Pig, having a glass of wine. But very quickly I realized that it is OK to brake out of my routine once in a while. Maybe not the wine at lunch, but certainly the break from the usual rat-race of juggling a career and children.
We talked about everything from business to the presidency. I never had to lean over and pick up a binky off the ground or clean up spilled apple juice. I got to finish my sentences and I didn’t have food on my lap.
I laughed and really felt quite accomplished by the time I left the restaurant. The guys were shocked that I was a mother of two and still working in the production world.
The point of this vignette is to remind us all that guilt is not a productive emotion- that taking a minute( or a lunch) every once in while that isn’t entirely necessary is a good way to rejuvenate especially when there is so much doom and gloom right now.
