This week, my child's daycare closed for a day of training. I therefore lost a third of my childcare and my biggest day for writing. In the spirit of sufficiency, the North of my compass, I will be transparent and admit that this week, I am aiming for adequate.

This week, my child’s daycare closed for a day of training. I therefore lost a third of my childcare and my biggest day for writing. In the spirit of sufficiency, the North of my compass, I will be transparent and admit that this week, I am aiming for adequate.

The etymology of the word ‘adequate’ is ‘enough.’ I always thought of adequate as not quite good enough — average. In this culture, average is invisible, not worth doing, bad even.

But what can I do? I have my child all day, and the day is beautiful. It’s fit for walking, for having breakfast with her grandfather, for playing in the park and literally ‘running’ errands on foot. It’s a good day to hula-hoop and eat roasted chicken off the bone with our fingers. It’s a good day to catch up on housework, vacuum the downstairs adequately (move around the toys, not under them). And all of this, we did.

Today, more than most days, I am present to the tension between working and being a mom. I feel some sadness. Sadness because on this pre-spring, gloriously sunny day, I had the background noise of anxiousness about what I wasn’t doing; sad because our delicious day ended sitting next to each other in front of a video, her staring at the TV and me at my laptop.

I know that ultimately it’s OK, not a big deal even. I grew up with a whole lot more TV, a whole lot more yelling, a whole lot more mom using the telephone, and a whole lot more errands. And my mom didn’t work for pay until I was 12. As I have previously declared (and will continue to stand by), all moms are working moms. Whether the work is paid or unpaid, dealing with the tension of your child’s needs, your needs and the needs of countless others is — intense, to say the least. And while I wish I had a more sophisticated insight about these tensions, a deeper or better thing to say, in the spirit of sufficiency, this is enough for today.

This week, I challenge us give yourself permission to be adequate, to practice letting go of your expectations, standards and assumptions about what is enough.

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