Being a mother means you carry cold coffee around, waiting for the elusive moment where everyone is happy and the microwave is available. Mothering means living a life of expectations. You see little ones waddling around, throwing tantrums, running noses and making fingerpainted masterpieces. You invest in small people who don't know how to use a fork and you say, "This is the next model citizen!".
Being a mother means that you expect your invisible work to pay off. You know that a million diaper changes will change the world, even though no one thanks you and the only immediate reward is freshened air.
We mother in a society where people want immediate results, immediate rewards. Planting a seed and watching it grow, investing in a savings account, repeating anything and doing the regular things in life...those things are pushed aside for the "now"...I got a pamphlet in the mail that said, "Life is too short to clean your own house"...and it made me nervous.
We hire other people to do routine work that is dreary and boring. The mailbox tells us that it's a waste of an existence to do housework and housewifely things. Sometimes I believe it, but then I catch myself walking around with a cold cup of coffee and I realize that in the midst of the mundane, I have great expectations.