A Bad Mommy Moment

This week I officially earned my Bad Mommy Club badge and simultaneously got a free trial membership for the Bad Neighbor Club. The other day, my four year old got an invitation to play with a little girl around the corner. I happily accepted and told the girl's mom that our nanny would call her when she arrived home from picking my daughter up from preschool. Unbeknownst to me, our nanny decided to run a few errands (ones I had asked her to do) on her way back from carpool and took much longer than I expected. By the time she got back, I was completely engrossed in a conference call from work and ended up forgetting all about the play date invitation until the next morning.

Needless to say, I was (and still am) completely mortified. The invitation was from a neighbor I like a lot whose daughter my daughter loves. I immediately emailed my neighbor a "I'M COMPLETELY MORTIFIED" note and called her later that day and left her a "I hope you got my note and in case you didn't, I'm so sorry!!!" voicemail. But so far I've gotten no response.

I realize that of the multitude of mommy offenses, this one is fairly tame. I mean, forgetting a play date isn't as bad as forgetting a child's school event, or forgetting to pick up a child from somewhere or you know, forgetting Christmas or something. And really, this week wasn't any ordinary week of insanity -- it was total and utter chaos. Aside from having an extremely intense week at work, three of the five home improvement projects we have going right now went horribly awry, my parents decided to drop in for a visit mid-week, the little one's school was closed for a fairly obscure Jewish holiday, and my older daughter generously bequeathed me the horrible cold she had, which meant hacking and sneezing my way through the week, snot running down my face, operating on very little sleep. And let's not forget we're still dealing with the remnants of Lice Fest 2007. But none of that was my neighbor's problem and I still feel like the biggest loser in the land of mommyville.

I could (and did) lay my guilt at the feet of my career. If I hadn't been so involved at work, if I had been the one to pick up my preschooler instead of my nanny and hadn't had to relay the message, things would have been fine. But I can't completely go there. Every time I do, I think of the time my own mom, then a SAHM, wrote down the birthday party of a new friend (and neighbor) on the wrong date in her calendar, causing me to miss the party completely. All moms make mistakes. At least my own daughter is blissfully unaware of this one.

I'm hoping my neighbor will forgive me and that I haven't completely blown a friendship for my daughter. I know my neighbor and her husband are getting ready to launch a new business venture soon and she's been a bit crazy herself. If a friend did this and told me afterwards, I'd tell my friend to give herself a break. But it's much easier to beat myself up. Help me feel better -- have you earned a spot in the Bad Mommy Club?

A Bad Mommy Moment

Are We Too Busy?

Yesterday, I left my straightening iron on. All day. I didn't realize it was still plugged in until I mindlessly threw a washcloth on top of it and eventually smelled something burning. It was one of those busy, overbooked days where we had one activity planned after another. I was rushing to get us all out the door, my mind focused on the long list of stuff we had to do. And in the process, I could have burned our house down. Or maybe something worse.

Of course I thanked my lucky stars that I escaped a potentially horrendous situation and vowed to be more mindful and careful in the future. But if I'm truly honest with myself, odds are something like that is bound to happen again. And I couldn't help but think of Brenda Slaby, the mother that killed her two year old daughter earlier this month by forgetting to drop her off at the babysitter and accidentally leaving her in the back of her sweltering car.

Brenda's story struck such a cord with me. I'd like to think that I would never, ever make such a careless, tragic mistake as to forget about my sleeping child in the back seat of my car. But my straightening iron incident was a sobering reminder that there are plenty of other ways that I could inadvertently harm my family by simply being scatterbrained. I've been struck by the lack of commentary on the Slaby story among the mommy blogs that I generally read. Maybe it's because we all have our straightening iron incidents and so the story hits a bit too close to home.

And so I can't help but ask, are we too busy?

Yes, most of us would admit that we're over scheduled (note to self: daughter #1 has Brownies tomorrow; daughter #2 has swimming). When my first child was a baby, I vowed that we wouldn't get sucked into that overachiever mindset where my children had to do absolutely everything. But somehow the activities just creeped up on us and the logistics and accouterments for the activities (who goes where when and what equipment do they need?) coupled with the accouterments and logistics for school (who goes where when, who needs what signed and who's doing what for lunch?), is alot to keep up with.

The activities are within our control and something to seriously consider paring back (I am). But it's not the whole story. Those of us who work know that it's also a big distraction. Joan Blades, co-founder of Momsrising.org writes about the extreme work phenomenon, where people work 24/7 leaving little time for family or anything else, in "A Peaceful Revolution" on The Huffington Post. "Might we be working stupid because we are so tired?" Blades writes. "It is time for us to consider our values." My boss and I debated this extreme work environment when I confronted him on my lack of career progression due to my mommy status. "I have all of this work that needs to get done. I need someone who can be available all the time," he lamented. While as a manager I understood his argument, I rhetorically asked why working around the clock had to be the norm and commented that it couldn't be healthy for anyone -- working moms or not.

I found this great NY Times article, "Too Busy to Notice You're Too Busy," when doing my limited research for this post. It's written by a woman who seems to have figured it out. I couldn't agree with her more that we all need to consciously find ways to make ourselves less busy. But we also need to find ways to change the extreme work environment. I'm counting on Momsrising.org and other organizations to lead the way on that front. In the meantime, I've put my Blackberry aside for the night and refuse to check my work email so that I can do what I enjoy most -- writing for this blog.

Are We Too Busy?