3 years ago, when I was 6 years into marriage and 5 years into motherhood, I wrote a list of reminders that I hope to revisit from time to time. They are the reminders to myself to be a good mummy to my children and a good wife to my hubby. I wrote this list for fear that one day I might be too caught up in a whirlwind of life’s changes, I might lose myself somehow and forget the basic ingredients in building a happy family.
Reminders to myself as a wife and mummy:
1) do not nag too much
2) learn to let go and care less, not care more
3) do not stress your kids academically
4) accept your child’s ability and accept who they are
5) accept who your hubby is
6) learn to take good care of yourself, take care of your own needs before others
7) treat yourself well
8) appreciate small improvements / changes
9) appreciate your blissful life now
10) appreciate that everyone including yourself is healthy
Now, 3 years after the above list is made, I am happy that I keep to most of the reminders, except maybe for no. 1 “do not nag too much” and no. 7 “treat yourself well”.
Nagging too much seems to be the inevitable for mothers. It’s a vicious cycle. If the kids or even the hubby had to have repeated reminders to pick up a piece of paper or to bring the cup to the sink area, how can the homemaker not say the same instruction repeatedly which is what they termed the “nagging”? If all I need to do is to just say it once, and the task gets done, will I ever need to “nag”? Nevertheless, I have accepted this as part and parcel of being human and what I’ll need to do is to say it out in a different tone and manner, perhaps that’ll take away the nagging tone to make the nagging not such a nag. I don’t know. But I will have to try. Does anyone has a good solution on this out there?
Treat yourself well. Usually mothers are like “burnt chop”. They are the ones who eat the burnt chop and give the good ones to the rest of the family. They always put the well-being of the family first and themselves last. Whatever they do, they do with the best interest of the family even if it means to sacrifice their me-time and social life. This is the area I need to improve on. Self-sacrifice has always been the norm for me and putting myself above the others is going to be difficult. So far, I have been trying to treat myself better minus all the guilt. Wish me luck!
For no. 8 and 9: “appreciate your blissful life now” and “appreciate that everyone including yourself is healthy“, I have written a blog post on this and am happy that a check at this point in time, I do appreciate such simple but easily taken for granted things.
How do you keep check on yourself to not take things for granted? And do you nag? Do you have ways to cut down nagging?
