THERE WILL BE NO BAKING OF BANANA BREAD

If the past 8 weeks were a chapter in a book, it would be titled, “I did not sign up for this!” Overnight I went from a career-loving parent who went to work while her kids went to school, to a full-time stay-at-home and a full-time work-from-home mom. I went from having my right-hand woman running my home from Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 5pm to running my own home Monday to Sunday 24/7.

I’ve lost count of how many 4:30pm cries I’ve had or scheduled virtual workouts I’ve canceled. Or Zoo biscuits I’ve inhaled just before a Zoom call with clients (because I may have made my kids 17 snacks between 7am and 3pm but I didn’t manage breakfast). So yes, I did not sign up for this. Thank God (I write that with the utmost sincerity) my kids are not in big school yet. To all the mothers who became teachers overnight, I cannot begin to describe how much respect I have for you.

So now that I’ve RSVP’d to my recurring pity party of one and given you some insight into what it’s like being this particular mom in a time like this, let me just make sure you aren’t considering a virtual intervention by telling you that I am in fact managing to keep my sanity and sense of humour intact during lockdown. Well, mostly.

Somewhere between the official onset of social distancing and the extension of Level 5 lockdown, I realised that I needed to channel my inner Elsa and “Let it go!” The “it” I am writing of is the crippling pursuit of perfection. It had to go. I’d like to say I came to this realisation on my own while doing #selflove sunrise yoga in my garden but that would be like telling you I hardly post on social media. Blatantly untrue.

It took feeling like a failure on every level, every day, for weeks, for my husband to convince me that balls were going to drop and some were best left on the floor so I could pick up and dust off the ones that matter, TO ME.

I made peace with the fact that some days I’m more Marilyn Manson than Mary Poppins on the motherhood front. And that’s okay. @MrsWinderley will not be baking banana bread or making playdough or taking the bins out in a ballgown. That’s okay, too. And so are ugly cries. And emotions. Better to express them than eat them.

But here’s the thing, I love seeing other mothers make banana bread and playdough, and be more Mary Poppins than Marilyn Manson, and wear ballgowns to take the bins out. I need to see other mothers winning. It makes me feel like I stand a chance, in between the Jedi-level juggling, of winning too.

A gazillion days into leggings all day, every day I’ve just realised that one mother’s mastering of banana bread is another mother’s mastering of “share screen” on Microsoft Teams. And that’s okay.

Sherinne Winderley

@mrswinderly