Poopy hands

While washing out the third poopy outfit of the day I looked down at my hands. Yellowy white from spray and wash and poo they didn't look like my hands anymore. Of course newborn poo isn't as bad as toddler poo and I thanked the Lord again that my three year old was finally potty trained. But the facts still remained that poo is poo and three times that day my hands were swimming in it.

The problem is that this is a fundamental part of my job requirements. I tried to explain to my husband that this bothers me. He fought back saying that there were parts of his job that he didn't like, but lets face it they don't include feces or defecation of any kind.

There are many irreconcilable problems with being a professional mother. Excrement is the least of these problems but it is a terrific catalyst for renewing the debate in my mind over how worth it this all is. Of course I love my children, more than anything in the world besides my husband but I don't want them to grow up thinking that they have to feel cloistered and unimportant. The other side of it though is that there isn't any greater joy or sense of fulfillment than what comes from raising children.

The thing that I keep going back to is that there are so many aspects of raising children that are degrading. Like washing out poopy clothes or being covered in throwup. When people ask what you do and you motion towards the two little cuties hanging off you, there is pity and then a little humor lingering in their eyes. After my first daughter was born I loved being able to say that I was a student and a stay at home mom. After I graduated I was a little sad to have only one title and that it was mom. I guess some of us can't get over the need for the accolades of society and the feeling that what you do is valued in other people eyes.

That's what it comes down to is where you feel your worth. If it is based on what others think of you, being a mom isn't going to satisfy your desire for validation. So I guess where that leaves me is changing the source of validation, without that change I can't hope to feel better about myself. I can only guess that changing the way I build my self worth won't happen overnight. Until that happens I will have to content myself with trying to laugh at the image of poopy spray and wash coating my hands several times a day. After all there is humor there, it's just harder to see through the foggy glasses of self pity.