Grown-up Make Believe

On Facebook, a friend posted an article written by a mom who lives in Utah County (Provo) about opting out as Supermom to instead be more real. Click here to read the article. She talked about how perfect the moms in Utah County seemed, as well as how clean their houses seemed, as well as how well-behaved their kids seemed, and as well as how everything they did seemed to come naturally. That sounds exactly like the former me - I was the Utah Valley Supermom...but I lived in Kansas. (A friend of mine even used to call me "Supermom.") Perhaps women from Utah are not fanatical about perfection, but I was. In high school, I made fun of Suzy Homemaker who got up at six AM and made freshly baked bread for her family, but I became like her in my own way as I attempted perfection in everything I did.

When I lived in Orem, Utah (which is a part of Utah Valley,) my friend said, "Jade, let him do it" when I moved my son's game piece. Many years later, I thought I was controlling, but perhaps I wanted to do it so that it seemed perfect. I agree with the author that it's better and a relief to be real - to just be yourself and to let your family be themselves, too, because real life isn't perfect, sometimes the house is messy, sometimes the kids wear mismatched clothes, and sometimes we eat ramen noodles for dinner. It takes a lot of courage to be "real" - to go against the grain when so many other people pretend. The author called pretending "grown-up make believe" and that is so true.

I didn't want to stand out and do something different; I wanted to be like everyone else. I wanted to be one of the millions who all did the same thing. And for years I did - I did what I thought was the typical but, according to the article I read, my pretending to be perfect was the extreme.