COVER STORY 6 Signs You Need a Break From Being Mommy • You’re not sure what you’d want to do, given time alone. • You can’t remember the last time you had the house to yourself. • You’re surprised to hear your given name. • You could practically live out of your car with all of the food, clothing, and gadgets in there. • You don’t close the bathroom door any more. Why bother? • You still carry a diaper bag, even though your kids have been potty trained for years. For a touching look at the power of being called by your given name after years of being “Mommy,” check out the Japanese YouTube video “Call Her Name” by POLA (with the closed-caption feature turned on). http://youtu.be/oiF_qeICoLU.
While in college, Michele Kus walked out of a jazz band audition, vowing never to play music publicly again. Burnout had pushed her over the edge. Twenty years later, after seven years as a mom and the birth of her third child, she was exhausted from parenting and in need of a territory to call her own. Unexpectedly, she found herself being drawn into playing keyboard at her church. This time music became a lifeline. “The music is fully mine. It is me being fully me. It is not something I do for my children or for my husband; in fact, they must make sacrifices for me to do it,” Kus explains. At the beginning when we are establishing a family, we adopt our new roles wholeheartedly, even calling each other “Mommy” and “Daddy.” But as the kids grow and we never hear our given name, it can be discouraging. Limiting our identity to one role has the potential to build resentment. And it can diminish our ability to be our best as a parent. Want to be a better, more fulfilled mom? Try one or more of these seven ideas for reclaiming yourself as a whole person:
1. Establish a ‘no kids zone’ in your house. They may follow you everywhere (including the bathroom), but that does not mean you don’t
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deserve a space of your own. Even a chair or nook designated off-limits to everyone but you can provide a respite when the troops are restless.
2. Spend time around people who don’t know your children. It’s natural for the majority of our associates during the child-rearing years to be those who play a role in our children’s lives: parents of playmates, fellow PTA members, neighborhood moms. However, this limits us to being identified as somebody’s mom. When you engage with others minus the kids, you have the chance to express another side of yourself. This can be as simple as going to the gym or a Pilates class once a week. 3. Accomplish a personal goal. We often have the sense that the world drops off at our doorstep; that we have to put everything on hold for the sake of our children. But the truth is, our kids can appreciate us more when they see us making time for ourselves too. And fulfilling one goal can lead to other opportunities. For Kus, engaging in music again has spawned new aspirations: making an album, learning how to DJ, writing soundtracks.“It has opened a whole new world for me,” she says. “I feel like I have come back to life, and my husband and kids have seen the change in me.”