The Reason Moms Struggle in One Photo
By: Wendy Miller
Tags: Parenting, Motherhood, Children, Family, Single Moms

Have you seen this photo on Facebook? The text on it might vary depending on which version you’ve seen, but the image itself is the same. Mom is pouring a glass of water while standing on one leg and using her other foot to hold the oven door closed so her child doesn’t fall and bust his/her head open.

Photo Credit: If you know, please tell me so I can give them credit!

And as a mom, I’ve chuckled at the truth in it myself. But, also as a mom, this image is a prime example of the struggles moms face every day.

Why?

Because the person who took the picture chose to pull out their phone or a camera and take the picture instead of offering her a hand. They could have grabbed the kid off the oven door. They could have held the door closed so Mom could drop her foot to the ground. They could have taken the glass and the drink bottle and poured the drink so Mom could take care of her kid.

Now don’t get me wrong: I can laugh at this as easily as the next person. It is funny because it’s so true. And as a single mom, I’ve often been in her position because I had no one to help me.

But here’s the point I want you to see and think about: this isn’t just about this image.

This image is merely a representation of what moms are dealing with every day, all day, nonstop.

We are constantly bending our limbs in different directions to help our kids, protect our kids, and get a million tasks done at once. We are bending over backwards, working ourselves to exhaustion from the moment the alarm goes off until the moment we fall into bed, making sure everyone else is taken care of.

And family, friends, partners, co-workers, neighbors, and others take pictures. They admire us for how much we do, how hard we work, how dedicated we are, how much we love our children. They give us props for all of it.

But we don’t need praise. We don’t need someone to tell us what a good job we’re doing. We know we’re doing a good job. We’re doing the only job we can do because the alternative is for our kids to suffer. And we’re not going to let that happen.

What we need is help. What we need is someone to not take a picture because it would make a cute meme but instead to set their phone down and offer a hand. What we need is someone who can say, “What can I do to make your life a little easier?”

“Hey, if you need help, you should just ask,” some will say.

Fair enough. Moms should ask for help when we need it.

But it’s also fair to say if you see a mom struggling to do several things at once, she shouldn’t have to ask you to help her. She especially shouldn’t have to ask you to not take a picture and help her.

I have two sons. And I have worked hard to teach them homemaking skills like cooking and cleaning and how to take care of a child and even how to deal with a woman’s period so that they will (I sincerely hope) one day be partners who do what they can to share the load of marriage and parenting with their partners.

I have worked hard to try to teach them to be the kind of men who, if they saw their wife standing in the kitchen with one foot on the oven door to protect a child from falling and getting hurt while getting the same child a drink, will drop everything to grab the child or grab the drink so their wife can focus on just one thing.

And my hope is that other mothers are doing the same, so the next generation of mothers will get more help than mothers have until now.

But what the next generation does or gets isn’t helpful to mothers who are in the thick of raising children right now.

So here’s my question to you: What can you do to help a mom out right now?

It doesn’t have to be a big deal. But maybe you can offer to watch her kids for 15 minutes so she can take a quick shower — or even just pee by herself.

Maybe you can cook her a meal that she can eat while it’s still hot. Maybe you can pour her a glass of wine or water.

Maybe you can simply ask her how she’s feeling. Or ask her if there’s anything she’d like you to do for her or help her do.

I know the pictures like that meme are cute. They are. I don’t deny that. It’s cute, it’s funny, and I’m sure the mom in the picture finds it as funny as the rest of us.

But I bet she’s also as tired as the rest of us. And I bet she’d love some help.

I just hope that whoever took the picture put the phone down when they were done and helped her.

Wendy Miller is a Single Mom Coach & meditation teacher. She helps moms use mindfulness and meditation to create the life they really want. She lives in Florida with her two sons, where she homeschools while solo parenting, while surrounded by what feels like a zooful of animals.

You can follow her on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. You can also sign up for her newsletter where she offers more insights, tips, tricks, advice, and information to help single moms find purpose, creativity, passion, and peace.

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