Last updated on August 24th, 2023 at 07:20 pm
“I’ll never be good enough.” Am I the only one who’s ever thought this? Tonight we had a bunch of our family over to celebrate my twins’ 10th birthday. It was great. I love spending time with my family. Really, I do. However… sometimes things aren’t always so merry.
My husband’s grandmother is 84 years old, originally from Puerto Rico, she made her way to the United States as a young adult, leaving her children behind so she could build a better life for her family here in New York. All she could afford was a one room rental. No kitchen, a shared bathroom, and an abusive husband. Yes, she had a very tough life. I’ve heard many stories about it, both good and bad, during her lengthy doctors visits after she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The tumor was totally removed, and her body no longer shows any sign of cancer, proving to me that she is, as I thought, tough as nails.
She comes from an era where women didn’t work unless they had to. I’m very fortunate in that regard, that I don’t have to work. Sure, we could scrape by on one salary, but it would be scraping. And I appreciate the finer things in life and don’t want to scrape so much. I also love what I do. My life’s work of building a community of multiple-birth parents around the globe has really been a driving force and also helped developed who I am as a person. My job gives me a lot of self-worth. I’m not saying my kids and my family don’t, but I find that my work, and the people I work with, are much more appreciative and understanding of my life. It’s sad that I believe strangers who know me through Twiniversity understand me better than the great majority of my family, including my husband’s grandmother. In her opinion, my house is never clean enough, my children’s rooms are never organized enough, and I should be ironing everything in my family’s wardrobe, including their underwear. I shouldn’t work because I don’t need to. I should be more appreciative because my husband isn’t abusive (let’s not even talk about that right now.) To her, my life is easy breezy lemon-squeezy.
My family thinks I’m crazy for doing as much as I do. I’m sure your family feels the same way. From running my local mother of twins club, to spearheading events with my kids PTA, to picking up the kids every day at 3 o’clock, helping them with their homework, and attempting to put a square meal on the table, to being a successful entrepreneur and writer, to being an advisor to many brands developing products specifically for multiple birth families. And still always answering the phone when a mother or father have a problem and just need someone to talk to. My phone number is readily available over the Internet. I get calls from around the globe from women with postpartum depression, dads worried that they aren’t the best father, and parents who just delivered micro-preemies on the other side of the country. I can help them all.
I’m not saying I do the best job of balancing everything. Sure, I could fight that grime on the shower door a little harder. Sure, I could do the laundry more than twice a week. Sure, I could always have my makeup and hair freshly done when my husband walks through the door as if it’s 1942. But that just wouldn’t be me. To my husband’s grandmother I’m a disgrace as a woman and as a mother. I should do less and pay attention to them more. My kids and my husband should be the air that I breathe, the sun that I let shine, and I should need nothing else.
To me, working as hard as I do and balancing as much as I juggle is teaching my children that you can have your cake and eat it too. And you’re going to get a lot of crumbs on the floor along the way. There is no longer a cookie-cutter mom role. We have evolved very far since we’ve won the right to vote. I sometimes think she hasn’t.
So to her, I’m not good enough. But to me, after I talk myself off of that ledge, I realize I am. I’ll never be the person she wants me to be. I’ll probably never be the person most of my family wants me to be. But you know what, I am who I am. Didn’t Popeye say that? He was good enough, wasn’t he? Olive Oil sure loved him. But he was a man and I’m sure my husband’s grandmother would say that Olive Oil did too much too… and she should be ironing his underwear.
Natalie Diaz is the Pied Piper of twin families around the globe. Founding Twiniversity — the world’s leading support network for multiple birth families — in 2009, she’s become a global influencer for this small niche community. Reaching over a half a million families a week through Twiniversity’s Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube channels, she takes her Women In Toys Wonder Woman Award Nomination for Social Media Influencer very seriously. Moms and dads of twins flock to Twiniversity’s social media channels to find resources, ask questions, explore new products, and find community and support from other twin parents. Natalie is a true connector, bringing parents from all walks of life together, breaking past cultural differences, to share in the highs and lows of parenting twins.
Are You a New Twin Parent?
Check out Natalie Diaz’s book:
“What To Do When You’re Having Two
The Twin Survival Guide From Pregnancy Through the First Year”
In What to Do When You’re Having Two: The Twins Survival Guide from Pregnancy Through the First Year, national twins guru and founder of Twiniversity (and twin mom herself!) Natalie Diaz provides a no-holds-barred resource about life with twins, from pregnancy and birth all the way through your duo’s first year of life.
Accessible and informative, What to Do When You’re Having Two
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