Mompreneurs

To all the Mompreneurs out there - You. Are. Awesome.

I have a billion ideas in my head of ideas that I would love to launch. But for some reason as of late, I am suffering from a major case of un-dedicatedness. The thought of committing week after week to one thing sends me running from all my possible ventures.

The biggest benefit of being a stay-at-home mom is that if I don't measure up, my young children likely won't notice, and if they do notice, won't mind. If I wake up tired and grumpy from being up all night with Benjamin, or with a case of the winter blues, or just feel blah, I don't have to perform. I can send the boys off to play with each other and lounge around with Benjamin. I can throw on a movie or haul everyone to the Early Years Centre. Now, as an involved mother and someone who likes to parent with a purpose, I don't do this everyday. I don't even do it very often. But I have the option, if I need to.

Committing to something like teaching music classes or tot school, or cooking or baking or sewing on orders...just sends me running in the opposite direction. And it is driving me nuts. Why can't I commit to something? Where is that drive and focus that filled me day after day during my school years? I was an entrepreneur for years, tutoring French, teaching piano and voice lessons, working freelance in film and advertising.

I feel my lack of success in the homeschool arena is also symptomatic of this syndrome. I've started and re-started too many times to count. Caleb and I have reached the letter "g" five or six times, but never moved past it. I am always collecting books and ideas and websites that inspire me in lesson ideas, but I never do anything with it.

Last June I wrote this post posing the question "are human beings inherently lazy?" I concluded that it is a learned behaviour, since as babies and toddlers our appetite for learning (and self-directed learning) is insatiable. So am I now discovering in myself 30 years of learned laziness?

Or can I justly write it off as being a mother of three young, very active boys? Of four years never sleeping through the night? Of three pregnancies that took a hard toll on me physically, emotionally and mentally? Of living in a country that spends half the year outfitted in frigid temperatures, driving me to hunker down indoors? Of not even being able to be caught up at home, let alone adding another responsibility to my list?

I wish I could say writing this all down has given me the kick in the pants I needed to stop wallowing in my pity party for one and to get up and get moving on something. But it hasn't. I don't feel any more drive than I did when I sat down to write. What I am doing, however, is trying to do more personal projects at home, ones that don't have outer pressures and deadlines (like having to show up at a specific time and place week after week to meet other people.) I'm doing a few sewing projects. I'm directing and editing a short film for myself. I've started a writing journal. I'm organizing lots of music at church. I'm going to start some mixed media art projects. And there is always this wonderful blog. Perhaps after some time dedicated to personal projects will get me motivated to move beyond.