Desperately Bad Housewife

I think I'm a decent Mom. And I'm motivated to be a better one. But I KNOW I'm a terrible 'house manager'. And the real problem? I don't give a rat's ass.

For as difficult as it can be, I love being a Mom. And its pretty easy to get motivated to try to be a better mother because they payoff is, at least in theory, happier, healthier kids. I see my friends feeding their kids awesome lunches and I'm motivated to feed my kids better. While I don't read as much as my should I enjoy learning what I can about their development, etc., and I wish I knew more. Whether or not I'm any good is less important to me than wanting to be good. And while it may be called a "thankless" job, at this age at least, you get so many payoffs in the day to day interactions with your kids. No review I've had at work has ever been as satisfying as having my kids jump in my arms and tell me they love me.

But when it comes to being a 'head of the house' I find very little satisfaction in it. If anything, I resent it. I know that being home so much more than Andrew means I should be the one taking care of things in "the home" but what makes you a good mother doesn't translate to all this other crap. I suck at cooking, I'm not nearly enough organized, I have zero interior design sense, and I'm not a control freak. Which are pretty much a lot of the things you need to manage a house well.

I keep trying to find a way to find some kind of satisfaction in these activities. Cooking is the only one I'm really motivated to get better at, because the payoff is tangible and there is a very social aspect to it. But everything else seems so damn thankless. And yet I know our lives would be better if I got better at some of this stuff. And I'd be less resentful of them if I figured out a way to do/manage them better. My longer term goal is to work enough that I can outsource almost all of it. But in the shorter term (as I know I'll work less/take months off after #3) I am going to try to get better at a few of them (cooking, organization), and then more efficiently outsource the stuff I really despise/resent (laundry, picking up after EVERYONE in the house).

Ugh. Wish me luck.