Saturday I got all reminiscent about how I felt about mothering before I had my son—which got me thinking. What skills or talents do you wish you had before you became a mother?
For me, that’s a pretty easy question. My first answer is always PATIENCE. I can be patient with some things, but other things, I expect to go exactly as planned or I basically freak out. This is not only bad when I lose my patience and get upset with my son, but also a bad example of how to deal with stress (and, frankly, every day life, since that’s about how often it happens!).
I also wish I’d gotten a bit more consistent with my housekeeping before he was born. It’s still a constant struggle to keep the floors clean and the dishes done around here (with much credit for the latter due to my husband).
Finally, I think I’d like to have learned more contentment. I don’t know if it’s my age or just my nature, but I frequently suffer from psychological wanderlust—I’m ready to move on to the next thing every so often. (Or perhaps four-month-long courses in college ruined me!) As fast as children grow up, it’s not ever on your time table—and when they do reach that next milestone, how often do we mothers find ourselves thinking “Man, why can’t he grow back down? It was so much easier before he could crawl/walk/drive!”
I wish that I were more naturally adept at surveying my life where it is at a given point and being able to give a satisfied smile without thinking “Okay, good so far—but now what? What should I be working on next? Let’s go, go, go!”
So what skills do you wish you’d developed before your children came along? Or what would you advise a prospective mom to learn before she had children?