Was life less stressful for you pre-crunchy? Were you happier before you *knew* all these dangers and toxins and BPA and OH MY GOD DOES IT EVER END?
Do you feel more guilty being a “natural” mom because now you have to live up to the persona? Now you have to make sure you freaking read everything?!
Did your transformation into living natural become a transformation into now feeling like you suck at everything? At least *before* you didn’t know you were choosing harmful ingredients or detergent that could blow up a house. You were oblivious to it, right? You just enjoyed your little, happy life without giving anything else a thought. It was nice.
But now you see all these warnings and labels and artificial food colorings and your brain is about to explode. How can you be a good mom now and CHOOSE to buy something that has corn syrup in it?
Now you have to soak your nuts (hehe!) for 100 hours, and dehydrate your own jerky. You literally cry when you drive through Chick-Fil-A because you are submitting your kids to such dangerous chemicals in the food.
You feel more guilt.
You feel more stressed.
You feel less happy.
You feel less functional.
You….feel……….miserable, exhausted, and anxious.
You don’t enjoy this beautiful life anymore cause you are more stressed about the ugliness in this world. You no longer enjoy learning about natural and healthy living, you stress out when new studies come out and more pressure is now on you.
You CANNOT read ANY more blogs or websites. It’s just too much. You’ve blocked them from your feed. You are on healthy education overload and you are about to throw in your natural living, crunchy towel for good.
You know what moms…AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR ALL THAT.
The point is that you are TRYING. You are learning. You are making your home the best place that you can for your children. Most moms forget to give their kids their supplements, use disposable diapers over cloth, and forget to soak their nuts. Hell, I order pizza on occasion for my family! It’s OKAY. My kids are not going to die.
Yes, ignorance was bliss before. You gave your dogs crappy kibble without a second thought and your kids loved those Gerber Puffs. C’mon moms! You aren’t going to damage your kids, or your dogs. It’s not the “once or twice” that hurts us, it’s the lifetime of it.
If the natural remedies aren’t working, there is an amazing thing known as medicine. It’s not evil if you do it the right way. It’s a gift.
This is not the granola olympics and we are not trying to win the award of the crunchiest mom. Stop trying to live up to your fantasy Pinterest world and if you have to stop reading all the new articles that come out (don’t stop reading mine!), then so be it!
Go back to the basics. Read my post on how you might not be perfect, but you are enough for your family or this post on how this mother is done trying to make her kid’s childhood magical.
What is it that is most important to you?
Write out 5 things that are the MOST important to you and go from there. If you love pizza and so do your kids? Then eat the damn pizza on occasion. Your kids aren’t going to look back at you and say, “geez mom, how come you let me eat pizza so much?”
What is important to you? Is breastfeeding important to you? Put your energy into that.
Are you literally HATING cloth diapering? Then stop and buy a safe alternative.
Is making your own detergent getting annoying? Then don’t.
Make a decision to do the best that you can and then leave the rest to grace. Grace covers our inadequacies and our guilt and it fills us up with joy.
Go look at your kids face. Do you see a child who is wishing for more from you?
Tomorrow is a new day, my friends!
Yes, yes to everything you’ve said! The last thing we need is mommy guilt when we are trying our best. Mental health is also important and we can’t do it all!
yes. that’s all — just “yes”. (ok, yes and thank you)
Thank you for this article. It really put things in perspective for me. This has defiantly been me for the last six moths and I feel like a chicken with my head cut off. There is not enough time in the day and not enough of me to go around. At the end of the day I really need to think about what is important and focus on that. Thank you so much for the advice!
YES! YES! AND YES! How did you get in my brain and read my thoughts EXACTLY! I feel like I will forever be sick because I don’t have the energy to do it all right.
Another Excellent article Jackie!! Thank you for taking the time to address reality and bring us back down to earth. 😉
God Bless ya Missy!! 😉
Thank you!! I needed to read this article today.
Great post! And this sums up how I try to live my life these days. Yes, sometimes I worry that I’m not doing enough or that I made the switch to ‘natural’ and ‘real’ too late…but, I’m doing the best that I can now and will continue to do so (just like I did before I knew any better)! And that’s what’s important. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Thank you so much for this! I’ve been thinking about this recently and I feel like I’m on information overload – there is always, ALWAYS something new that is potentially dangerous for our children and ourselves to digest. Sometimes we can’t afford to choose the better option, so often we just go without instead of buying the more “evil” version but most times you have to buy the lesser of two evils and it brings on a lot of guilt! This is a great article, thank you so much!
Yes and AMEN! Bless you!
WELL SAID!!! Thank you for this reminder. It’s hard to keep things in perspective sometimes!
Ahhhh thank you!!! I’m pregnant with my first child now and literally driving myself mad doing all this research and trying to find the safest baby products out there. It’s amazing what you discover when you start to dig more, which has been completely stressing me out. Lately I’ve been realizing that there is nothing I can do to completely avoid all toxins, so I have resolved to calm down and focus more on having a low-stress pregnancy. There is only so much you can control! You’re so right!
Thank you for this. Not a mom but feeling overwhelmed when I can’t afford to switch everything over and buy organic/grassfed all the time.
Totally need this. Trying to heal my leaky gut, and feel totally overwhelmed. Feel like if I don’t do everything perfect, that I am never going to heal and feel better!
Great post! This is exactly what I’m trying to work on right now…. life is getting difficult trying to balance it all!
Love this! I think moms put A LOT of pressure on themselves. We have to look perfect, live in a perfect house, and have perfect kids. Ain’t gonna happen! But choosing a few things that are important to you, and focusing on those, is a great idea!
This is SO important. There have been countless times where I fall so short of where I want to stand when it comes to being natural so I become overwhelmed, lost, and give up. It seems like the more you learn the more difficult it is to remember why you started and which aspects are the ones that are paramount to YOUR life and needs. It’s good to get a reality check like this to bring one back down to earth!
This is great! I definitely was doing that to myself and have been working harder to cut myself some slack. Just trying to do the best I can but also trying not to be so overwhelmed. Balance is important!
Well said!!! It is over whelming at times, especially when you read something you just can’t un-read it and forget about what you just learned.
I do now try and just go with it and not get all consumed in it. It’s a great reminder to all of us to do what we can but no need to go nuts LOL!
I love this! I think people’s perception of me is very different than my reality, even though I plainly say on my blog that I make compromises, and that when trying to be more natural and organic for your family, make priorities according to your needs, and choose a few things to make compromises on. It may take a while, but finding a balance is possible, and I love the way you stated that. Very honest, open, and down to earth. Anything to help people realize that this lifestyle is not as hard as it looks, and it is doable for the average family!
Thank you. Comforting to hear this.
Thanks for sharing.. It’s also fairly difficult to resist the urge to natural living… Keep sharing 🙂
This literally made me cry. I am 22 and a stay at home mom. My husband makes less than 30K a year and I have read and researched so much that I get so overwhelmed. I buy local meat and make my own lard for cooking but if I buy something in a package I feel like a failure and like I’m going to kill us all!! Okay.. a little exaggerating.. or not.. but I so needed this! Thank you!
You are so right. You can only do so much. In fact, your family will feel your pressure too. Isn’t it funny though that dads don’t get worked up about this stuff. They’re happy with captain crunch and cheese dibbles. Relax and enjoy your gifts.
Thank you for writing this! Change is hard, and changing so many aspects of my lifestyle has been difficult with only online advice to follow. There are not a lot of fellow practitioners that I know. Trying to reduce my waste, live a simpler and more natural lifestyle SOUNDS easy, but goodness no. Sometimes I stand paralyzed in the store deciding whether I should buy the organic, non-gmo product, or the one that is not organic but has sustainable packaging, or maybe fair trade or the local product? Then I decide and realize the product has palm oil and have to redecide on something that isn’t deforesting the Sumatran jungle.
And then there are those things you can’t unread. And the lifestyle decisions! Do I need this? Can I buy it second hand? [wow, that rant must have been pent up inside me!]
I am glad to hear so many others feel the same anxiety. Thanks again!
It’s about owning your choices. Any time you live through someone else’s words, choices, truths, you are NOT living your life. Strength comes from making your own choice and feeling that it is a choice. Lesser of two evils isn’t a comfortable choice to be making, so work out what is and remind yourself it’s a choice, always!
I like the concept of the 5 things that are non negotiable. I’m not sure how many we have, but we have some very non negotiable things, some things that are negotiable and things that are open to the big picture choice ( like my youngest child who has less allergies than the other two…..means his choice of food and drink is different to theirs if he is out on his own with us…but if he’s eaten a lot of home baked goods and fruit smoothies, then the drink of choice is water when we’re out! But big picture, if it’s been a light on the natural sugars week, then yep, a juice is fine ).
I also think it’s the curse of the modern lifestyle. As much as we want it easier, easier comes with danger. The less of the modern you choose, the less danger ( toxins, bpa or the even worse bpa free, hidden sugars, bad oils etc etc etc ) is in your life. But again, it’s a choice. Make it a choice and know you’ve chosen that choice with awareness!