author: Jeanette Mesite Frem

So two things happened in the last week that made me think about how moms get ready in the morning.

One was a conference session at the MA Conference for Women  about finding balance as a mother.  Ten thousand women in one place with lots of speakers and vendors and breakout sessions (and the highlight of the day was hearing the founder of TOMS shoes speak…what a great story about his company’s history and passion to help kids around the world get shoes!).  There was a particular session that I heard about that blew me away.  My friend went to the session and told me about it…it was about life-work balance.  When asked how they manage to get things done and get ready to go to work, one of the panelists said that she has someone come to her house every morning at 7:00 am to do her hair (and she wasn’t kidding). Another said she has the nanny take care of the kids so she can get herself ready.  The other said that her sons are actually not hers, they are her husbands, so since they already have their biological mother, she doesn’t really deal with them much. WHAT??  Wow.  Now, I wasn’t there, so this is third hand and maybe it wasn’t said exactly this way but…that’s not reality for most of the world, right, folks!?

Two was this photo (which you’ve probably seen many times by now) of supermodel Gisele Bundchen getting ready for whatever she’s getting ready for after getting three hours of sleep and a 15 hour flight.  She’s nursing her son (also Tom Brady’s son) and so of course, this gets attention in the media (good for you Gisele…too bad the media couldn’t be there for your homebirth to publicize the fact that women can actually give birth these days without intervention, even Brazilian women like herself, when in her home country the Cesarean rate in many places is 95%…but I digress).

Different writers in the media put in their two cents, but my favorite was this post on boston.com by a doctor who encouraged moms to post their own photos of themselves nursing their child(ren).  Yes, that!  Do it!

What is your morning routine like?  I hear moms in three different camps.

Camp #1:  She must to take a shower every morning before her partner leaves or before her child wakes.

Camp #2: She manages to shower whenever she manages to shower, but definitely once a day.

Camp #3: Shower? Why does she need to shower?  Isn’t eau de maternité good enough?

Whichever group you’re in, you make it work.  Do you remember that story of how Napoleon sent his beloved Josephine a letter during the war saying something like, “Be home in a month. Don’t bathe.”   We’re working hard taking care of our children and they love us without a blow-out.  And for those of us who work outside of the home (and therefore society expects us to shower before coming to work) it can be more of a circus in the morning.  I think the photo itself looks luxurious, but if you read that she had gotten three hours of sleep and had gotten off of a 15 hour flight and was about to do another photo shoot, whoa, I don’t want to sign up for her life.  Kudos for her for spending time with her baby! That’s what motherhood is all about, not even whether she’s nursing him or not.  There’s time for work.  Time for play.  And both can include baby or not.  Ladies, we can have it all, maybe just not at the same time.

Two snaps up.  In a circle.