(Don’t worry, I won’t tell you how it ends!) Essentially, the plot of the movie is that an overworked and underappreciated mom, played by Mila Kunis, learns that her husband is cheating, and when she’s asked to take on yet another responsibility (the PTA’s Bake Sale Police Force) she decides that she’s had enough. She says no and then starts a war with the current PTA president. Hilarity ensues!
But aside from the fact that no real mom actually looks like Mila Kunis does (who wears six inch heels for much of the movie), and that many of the stay at home moms in the movie wear blazers and pearls to drop off their kids (um, no), there were other things that bothered me about this movie.
I Crashed My Car Into A Bridge:
After Mila Kunis has flipped out and decided that she’s no longer going to take any shit from people, she and her two new friends go on a bender at a bar, followed up by a scene in which they rampage through a grocery store, mainlining Lucky Charms cereal and mixing White Russians in a milk jug before spraying each other with vodka, all to the tune of Icona Pop’s “I Love It” (the song in which she talks about crashing her car into the bridge…and I don’t care!)
It’s a great scene for a movie. Hilarious. These women are no longer going to the be the respectable, doing-everything-for-others-while-never-getting-anything-for-themeselves-moms that they have been in the past. Yay!
What’s the middle way?
But here’s my essential issue with this movie – aside from the blazers and the “revenge on cheating husband tactics” (which could be the subject of a whole other blog.)
Somewhere between the “I do all of my children’s homework, work full-time hours for part time pay, make all of the meals, do all of the grocery shopping, and scrub toilets, all for no thanks from my children or husband mom” versus “I never go to a kids’ baseball game and I get wasted every weekend mom” there’s a middle ground.
And we don’t need to call ourselves a “bad mom” as Mila does in her banner speech in order to walk that middle path. We aren’t bad moms because we’re fighting for balance. We aren’t bad moms because we don’t know what we’re doing. And we aren’t bad moms when we don’t have it all figured out.
We’re just moms. Women. People. Fighting for that little bit for ourselves.
Self-indulgence is not self-care.
But fighting for ourselves doesn’t mean that we get to go on an Icona Pop rampage. We often veer between these extremes. We feel overworked and overwhelmed, so then we have all sorts of coping mechanisms that we cling to in order to grant ourselves small indulgences. Or we feel the need to take off a week from our kids and our jobs and just relax on a beach somewhere.
But what, exactly, are we getting out of these indulgences? What if we could just be happier as we went about our days, instead of needing that second glass of wine at night?
This isn’t to say that there isn’t a time and a place for a vacation or a much-needed rest or even a glass of wine. But I know from my own personal life that when I feel fulfilled and happy, then I don’t need as much of a break. I don’t need to indulge in anything (except chocolate. Chocolate stays.)
And God knows I know how good it feels to go down that path of serious self-indulgence. Many of you know the Erin I am today, but few of you know the Erin of my early twenties. That Erin was self-indulgent to the max. But I can tell you very honestly that I wasn’t happy.
Finding my sense of purpose, walking a line in the middle that gives validity to my needs as well as the needs of others around me, is what makes me happy now. I balance my needs for what I want to do with my life (those things that bring me meaning and fulfillment), with the needs of my kids (and sometimes my husband, too!)
Saying no more often:
It’s not easy. Walking the middle path means that you might have to say no more frequently in order to find time for those things that bring you closer to my goals and align with your overall values. It might look like: “No, I can’t volunteer. No, I can’t come to that event. No, I need some time for my stuff today.”
It also means asking for help when you need it. Help from the kids with their chores, help from your spouse or partner with cleaning, hiring people to help out when you’re overstretched.
Letting go of perfection:
Finding meaning in your life’s work also means letting go of those things that don’t align with your purpose. For instance, as I write this, there are breakfast dishes in the sink and Duplos on the floor. I’m pretty sure the floor hasn’t been swept recently, and that my room could use a vacuuming. But cleaning the house isn’t on my list of goals. Instead, I’m writing a blog for my growing business, because that’s what important to me.
This will probably feel uncomfortable. And it should. Living your authentic and best life is probably going to be a bit of a fight with yourself (and possibly even those around you who don’t understand). A sort of constant, daily internal battle between what you “should” be doing (can you come to this PTA meeting, I should really vaccum today, can you help me with this, did I walk the dog?) versus what you want to be doing to move yourself forwards (which for me is coaching, marketing, blogging, and fiction writing.)
A Lucky Charms cocktail?
Don’t just take my word for it, though. I’ve listed out a few of the studies here, the studies that say that giving back, finding meaning, and uncovering where you do your best work…those are the things that make us happier overall. They’re called eudaimonistic measures and are the opposite of hedonistic pleasures (like a Kahlua cocktail with a Frosted Flakes chaser…). And I would be willing to bet that if the bad moms in the movie had cultivated more of those things that bring them meaning and purpose, then there would be no need for White Russians in grocery stores. (But then there would be no need for a movie, either.)
So where do you find meaning and purpose? And how can you get more of it in your life?
- 7 Ways to Find Meaning at Work
- On happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being.
- Hedonism vs. Eudaimonism
