The Academy Awards have just finished although the diehard fans (and most media outlets) are still on a celebrity high, replaying highlights of the best and worst dressed, the trips on the gowns (we love you, JLaw!), and who won an Oscar for the best everything.
For the most part, those who won were surprised and humbly gracious when accepting their awards. It was as if they did not expect to win. They knew they had worked hard, done the best job creating and performing believable characters, and yet to be acknowledged for their efforts and dedication came as a shock to them. Why, when they were just doing their jobs?
Like single moms (and parents everywhere), we just do our jobs. We get up in the mornings, even when we would rather sleep in or we just don’t feel good, we get the family fed, dressed, organized, off to school, off to work, home again, fed again, bathed, homework done, and then we fall into bed sometime later.
And that’s a simple day.
But where is our award? Where’s our Oscar for best chef on the fly? Best driver within morphing boundaries? Best organizer? Best homework helper? Where’s the ceremony? The celebration?!
The truth is, we don’t get any of it. Yes we are appreciated – by other moms who know what we are going through, by teachers who are too busy to email but manage to squeeze one off anyway, and by our kids...even though they may not admit it until they’re 25.
Sometimes we need to know that we are doing a good job, we need a little acknowledgement. We have seen our feature film, including the blooper reel, and we know that we have done our best job possible. Occasionally, we just need to give ourselves an award for all that we do. It may not be in the shape of one golden Oscar man, it may be in the shape of our favorite pint from two ice cream men. But, it will serve its purpose until all the other accolades come in.
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