Changing My Outlook

Guest Post by Sarah from Clover Lane

So much of what we read, see and hear today are problems. Things to be solved, discussed and debated. Many of these are trivial things, but it’s hard to not get sucked in by it all. The busy-ness of being a mother and all the duties that it entails sometimes means that days fly by with me never thinking of all the things I take for granted.

I catch myself sometimes complaining about the chore of grocery shopping all the while I’m pushing my cart in a clean store with money in my pocket, throwing food in my cart for my children’s stomachs. What is there to complain about? How can this be one bit of an inconvenience to me? How many mothers in this world would give anything to be able to pick and choose what to feed their family?

I hear myself sighing loudly about the laundry, yet we are warm and clothed and have cozy beds to sleep in! I hear myself looking at my little chores with dread, but I have a house to clean, indoor plumbing and fresh water!

The last couple of years I’ve really tried to make an effort to stop myself when I hear those complaints creeping in, and thinking, “What is the other side of this?”

• When cleaning the bathroom is on the agenda, I think, “What if I only had a muddy unsanitary river to bathe my babies and children in?”
• When I’m tired of fixing meal after meal, I ask myself, “What if my children were crying at my feet and I had nothing to fix them?”
• When I’m exasperated at picking up school shoes strewn across the floor, packing lunches, checking book bags, I ponder, “What if I had to send my child miles and miles away, barefoot, with no lunch, to a tiny dirt floored schoolhouse?”

Instead of complaining, I try to change my outlook to one of happiness and total gratitude for how blessed I am.

Sarah is a mother of five who blogs at Clover Lane. She coined the terms “Vintage Parenting” to describe how she strives to raise her children, using old-fashioned values to bring a different perspective to the pressures we all face today. She strives for the simpler, slower, family-based life.