Moms: The Backbone of the Family

If you’re like me, when you were growing up, moms was just always “there” when you needed her. Your clothes were always clean, your room was always clean, breakfast, lunch and dinner were on the table at a set time every day. When the holidays came around – you would go to school and come home to decorations everywhere. Mom was always there when you needed to talk, or quietly hovering in the background.

Mom is the one who kept everything together. She is the one who ran her home like a well-oiled machine. I envy that. My well-oiled machine breaks down on a regular basis, no matter how hard I try to keep everything running smoothly. No matter how many times my machine breaks down though, mom is there, urging me to pick up the pieces and get back to it.

Moms are, for the most part, ignored except for Mother’s Day with regards to recognition. Wouldn’t it be nice if your spouse or significant other (or your children for that matter) came home one day, looked around, and thanked you for the wonderful job that you do each and every day?

I was thinking about everything I have yet to finish on my to do list versus everything that I accomplished so far today. This is what my schedule has been like today:

6:40 a.m.

• Wake up, start the coffee perking, load of laundry in the wash

6:45 a.m.

• Walk to the convenience store for youngest son’s snack (which I forgot to get last night) after rummaging in the dark for change so as to not wake up The Man Thing

7:00 a.m.

• Back home from the store, wake up the youngest son & get him ready for school, out the door with a kiss

7:30 a.m.

• Wake up the eldest son & get him ready for school, out the door with a hug (yeah, my smooching days with the eldest son are over – I’m lucky to get hugs now)

8:00 a.m.

• Work for an hour on Life in a House; wake up hubby at 8:30 a.m. and get his medications out for him

9:00 a.m.

• Hubby out the door and off to work
• Weekly Grocery Shopping Excursion with the girls (this week one friend had a broken foot and the other was ill and having to use her walker, so I tried to help the both of them as much as possible)

11:30 a.m.

• Home from shopping, unpack groceries and put everything away

12:00 p.m.

• Hubby needs me to take him for a random drug screening since he does not know where the Lab Corp. office is

1:30 p.m. to 3:15 p.m.

• Load the dishwasher
• Clean out the leftovers and the spills from the fridge
• Prep dinner (wash the chicken, cut onions, celery, peppers; season and put in crock pot)
• Make pizza for the boys
• Wash up the dishes that didn’t fit in the dishwasher
• Make lunch for hubby (salad and a burger sub)
• Unload the washing machine – load the dryer – start another load
• Vacuum the living room
• Sweep and mop the kitchen and dining room and hallway
• Clean off the counter tops in the kitchen
• Attend a Presidential news conference (I watched President Obama’s special news conference on television) and have lunch

3:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

• Drop a neighbor off at work
• Pick up the youngest son at school from Good News Club

So just for kicks and grins I tallied up what my Mom Salary would be (courtesy of the fine folks at Salary.com that have a Mom Salary calculator to help you determine your salary) and discovered that I should be earning approximately $161,261 a year – roughly $3,000 a week for all that I do.

I don’t know if I should be exhilarated or if I should cry. Knowing that I have about another 6 to 7 hours of work ahead of me before I can “call it a day” and relax – seems to me as though the family is squeezing out every single cent they can for their $3,000 a week.

Mothers are so very underappreciated, and knowing what we’re worth, it just makes me appreciate my own mother all that much more and wish that she were here so I could thank her for everything she did for us when we were growing up.

Think about everything that your mother did for you, everything that you do for your family, and know that – even though they may not verbalize their appreciation – those hugs and kisses make it all worthwhile – paycheck or not.

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