My husband and I recently started watching “Friday Night Lights” (I know, we’re late to the game, as usual), and during an episode in Season 2 Coach Taylor said something to his wife, Tami, that struck an emotional chord with me that I’ve now adapted as one of my new mantras.
Let me set it up for you: Tami is struggling with having to drop her baby (probably about 3 months) off at daycare for the first time. I can totally relate with this. The first time I dropped my first daughter off at daycare, I called my husband sobbing and was shaking. Of course it got better, and she ultimately thrived in the loving environment, but it was tough. We’ll see how that goes with baby #2, but that’ll be a different post. Anyway, Tami is expressing the difficulty she’s having to her husband and he says something to her that actually made me cry. He said:
“This burden is also our gift.”
It was a lightbulb moment for me. Each parenting obstacle we encounter, while challenging and stressful, is also a blessing. How lucky are we to have these “problems?” Maybe it’s my postpartum hormones kicking in, but this is my mantra as I navigate being a mom of two. Surprising that it came from a TV show, yes, but stranger things have happened.