Ages & Stages

We Can Do It All

By Elizabeth Esse Kahrs

I’m with my kids in BJ’s staring at enormous boxes of granola bars. There’s an older woman in front of me blocking my view. But I don’t mind, I’m looking above her. Still, she apologizes.

“No, really,” I say, “you’re not in my way.”

She looks at me, frowning. “I just got out of the hospital.” She shakes her head. “I mean just. And what am I doing? I’m here so everyone has something to eat.”

She thinks I’ll be receptive to her sudden outburst. I am.

“Isn’t that the way it is,” I say.

“Don’t I know it,” she says.

We stand there, together, joined in women-hood.

I know it, too. I know that it still exists—this sad subservient thing that happens to women simply because we are women. Even in this day and age, lets be honest, it still exists. Despite all the power and vigor we feel, it hangs over us like a dark cloud—no, not a dark cloud, but a foreboding cloud—with the ability to squelch our potential, if we let it.

For me, I think it has to do with being a mother. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE being a mother. In fact, I’m so glad that I had the sense to have children. But being a mother, the experience, the aftermath, has set the tone of my life. In a way, I’ve had to rise above the notion of myself as mother and caretaker to be, simply, me. It has been a process—this separation of selves, allowing myself to be a nurturing loving mother and wife, but at the same time trying to retain, or reignite, the me that I was before my family happened.

Not that I really knew who I was before I had children. Yes, I had a job. It was adequate. But, it was only after I had children that I felt like I really had a purpose, which lead me to my one true passion, writing. Yes, it is ironic, because having children is the same thing that had the potential to hold me back. But instead, my children have helped me find the jovial, fun-loving, silly me; the me of my youth. 

Still, there is this tendency to fall into a trap—to not know what is appropriate regarding my own personal growth vs. my family’s needs. Logic would tell me that I’m a person, too—I have wants, needs, and desires. Just like the summer camp I sign my children up for because it’s so important for them to go! Or later, that trip to Europe I purchase for them their junior year of high school, because it’s their right of passage! I have things I’d like to do with my life, things I’d like to accomplish.

Somehow, by accepting the role of mother, these needs get put on the back burner. They don’t seem as important as the rest of the family’s requirements. Most of us have a tendency to buy into this notion. Often, we just sit back and let it happen. It just seems easier that way. But I’m starting to realize, especially now as I grow older, I have one chance. I have one chance at living my own life.

Women are managers. We orchestrate everything. We are natural born multi-taskers. The challenge is for us to find a way to do it all. Yes, I said that. We must find a way to do it all, meaning, losing the guilt long enough to go for what we want at the same time we nurture, love, and take care of our whole families.

Yes. We can do this. We are capable. We can do it all.