Women are the strongest gender... Why!? Read on!
There are many things we can argue about in life, but one thing is crystal clear to me.
We women are the strongest sex. And now there might be a lot of men reading this blog feeling immediately attacked and offended... Swap for a week? I guarantee that afterwards you'll be begging us on your bare knees to switch back. To the superwoman reading this, this blog is for you! Yes, really, so it's for you too!
We women can be tough on ourselves. We see everywhere on social media the mother who has the body of a supermodel just 7 weeks after giving birth, children who laugh at the camera (how do they do that?) and perfectly styled and tidy houses. Maybe not entirely realistic, right? I think most of us would like to lose a little weight, occasionally want to wallpaper our children to the wall, and we step on a Lego block more often than is really necessary. But it's precisely you women, you rock! In my eyes, you really should be kinder to yourselves. Since you've become a mother, so much has changed! Suddenly you can't be sick anymore. You can't sleep in anymore and every little bit of me-time suddenly needs to be carefully planned. And without complaining (okay, maybe with a healthy dose of reluctance), you're ready every day to do your best for your family!
When your man is dividing his inheritance because he's lying on the couch wasting away with 'the flu', you're mopping the floor with a fever because a child just missed the toilet. Meanwhile, you scrub the chocolate spread off the wall and pack the kids' school bags. Miraculously, you also manage to get yourself into clean clothes and run a straightener through your hair. Wait, wasn't that shirt clean? It was just five minutes ago. Damn. Change again? No time left for that. Running, you pull the kids outside. 'Whoever gets to the car first!' Every day you battle with the car seat again. With a lot of swearing, you manage to get everyone buckled up. Okay, everyone's strapped in, just in time. Quick, get away. Argh!! Did you turn off the straightener?! The rest of the day you work or tidy up the house, put a cold washcloth on your partner's head, drive the necessary miles to drop off and pick up your kids everywhere, the taxi service usually drives fewer miles than you, you've cooked for everyone and yet you can still lovingly put your kids to bed exhausted! And that's just an ordinary day! We haven't even talked about that one week of the month. That one week when we used to be able to lie on the couch with a blanket and binge-watch for hours with chocolate and ice cream. The week when I suddenly understand why someone would join a certain group and drive a truck into a crowd of people. (Strangely enough, it's usually men who do something like that. Something to do with the flu?) Even in that week, you push yourself to keep going. Maybe you're even used to the toddler sometimes suddenly walking around the room with tampons in his nose and that your sanitary pads have already been used for other purposes by your preschooler? I feel you.
Regardless, you just go ahead and do it. Whether you've had a good night's sleep and wake up whistling or if you've had another one of those worthless nights and feel like a herd of elephants has paraded over you and you want to cry all day. Whether you start the day with coffee, maybe even a cup of tea, or at 7 am you're already longing for wine. Yep, 7 am, in the MORNING. (I've had those days.) You just go ahead and do it beautifully, you're up and at 'em! At the crack of dawn. Through thick and thin.
And despite everything, since you became a mother, you have gotten to know yourself
You've pushed boundaries. Climbed mountains. Conquered fears. You know your strength. You are the pivot of your family. There are little eyes looking up to you, seeing a woman who makes every other superhero fade in comparison. And if you don't see it for a moment and feel like you're failing as a mother and as a woman? Fuck it. You're doing your best. You try and you learn. Tomorrow is another day! And know that somewhere in the world, in the small village of Ermelo, someone has immense respect for you for bringing those kid(s) into the world. Because damn, that was a lot of work! You got this shit!
With love,
JOELLE
