No Matter What You Didn’t Do Today, You Did a Great Job While Sheltering-In-Place!

Parents Describe Their Feelings While Juggling Jobs, Kids, and School

Sheltering-in-place is helping me learn more about my family and children. The main thing I’ve learned: no matter what it took to get through the day—I’ve given my best.

This time has been so challenging, so hard.

It’s a time when I’ve lost my mind before lunch because my kids were squabbling and crying. It’s made me feel like a failure. I didn’t get to accomplish today what I wanted to with them.

Then, a voice inside me says, “Hey! Mom! Take a deep breath. It’s okay!”

How the Last Month Has Gone

During the first couple of weeks of sheltering-in-place, my husband and I became our kids’ Montessori teachers. Their teachers all provided us lessons and activities for each day to keep routines up.

It’s not easy. We are juggling and struggling. On one hand, my husband and I have been trying to keep our financial world together by working full time—or not at all—while being a full-time spouse, mommy, daddy, Montessori teacher, and employee. 

Last night in bed, I asked myself what I did today. 

Well, we all curled up on the couch and watched a movie together, made hot chocolate and popcorn, and then lazed around reading books on the couch. PG movies together. 

Didn’t accomplish all the lessons that we were responsible to work on with our children and I felt like a failure.

Then, a voice inside my head shook me!

Hey! Don’t worry! 

Take a deep breath and say It’s okay!

Why is it okay? Because my kids will learn in earnest when they return to school. 

Life will go on! So, today, I’m just going to focus on building a stronger love with my family by being a parent and not necessarily a teacher.

Tomorrow morning, at the breakfast table, I’m going to try a Very Montessori Method tactic: 

I’m going to let my kids decide and tell me what they want to do. 

We will do something new, learn something new.  We will exercise, walk the dog and play hide and seek together. Then, we’ll learn a lesson or read. Later, I’ll let the kids teach me drawing. Then, we’ll sing a song and learn it from start to end. I’ll follow that with a teaching moment: explaining how to play a new game or the finer points of a game they already know. 

It has been a great blessing to spend more than just 10 days with my family even though it’s not vacation and it’s not the holidays. Instead, it’s been the challenge of my adult lifetime. 

So, I’m just going to step back, find my purpose and accept that I’m not Supermom.

I’ll just get through the day knowing that my efforts have been good enough.

It’s gonna be okay and I’m okay! And, that means…my family will be okay, too while sheltering-in-place.