Free Welcome to the Funny Farm by Karen Scalf Linamen Page B

Pooh slippers have got to go.”
    I’ve got SOME standards, after all.
    In my defense let me remind you that I’m forty, not to mention the fact that Kacie is my second child. We forty-year-old women simply do not have the energy to raise our second, third, or fourth children as diligently as we raised our firstborns back when big hair and leggings were in style.
    So Kacie wore the Princess Barbie nightgown. I did, however, take extra pains adorning her hair with pink ribbons, and I made her wear frilly socks and Sunday shoes.
    After all, I didn’t want the other women to think of my daughter as a poor, neglected child whose mother would pack her off to a party in pajamas.
    No way. I wanted them to realize this was a beloved and well-cared-for child whose mother would pack her off to a party in pajamas.
    There IS a difference.
    Look, I came to grips several years ago with the fact that I’m not Superwoman.
    That was always my dream. I wanted to be Superwoman. When it came to homemaking, marriage, being a friend, and especially raising my kids, I wanted “perfection” to be my middle name.
    Unfortunately, I soon discovered that I’m hard-pressed to outrun a speeding toddler much less a speeding bullet. And leaping tall buildings in a single bound isn’t even in the realm of reality—not after I sprained my ankle trying to hop over a sprawling Barbie metropolis my kids erected in my kitchen one rainy afternoon.
    So I’m not Superwoman.
    How can I be so sure?
    Not only would a real Superwoman refrain from sending her child to a birthday party in Barbie pajamas, she also would never be rushing to get ready for an important job interview, nick her leg shaving, and have to walk out the door wearing a Muppet Babies Band-Aid under her hose.
    Furthermore, a real Superwoman would never hang up on her editor while shouting the phrase, “I have to go! The baby’s in the toilet!”, and she CERTAINLY would not be growing eleven different strains of penicillin in her refrigerator.
    I used to want people to think I was perfect.
    Now I’m relieved when they realize I’m not.
    Frequently folks write reviews of my books, and one review in particular made me want to hug the writer when she referred to my tendency to use the smoke alarm interchangeably with the oven timer and then went on to observe: “This woman is a nonthreatening teacher. We are convinced that she needs help, but since we do too, we will accept any pearls she has to offer.”
    Have you ever looked at your life and thought, “I’d love to be a positive influence in someone’s life, but my own life feels too flawed/chaotic/imperfect/unorganized/broken for me to have anything worthwhile to offer”?
    Yeah, me too.
    But I’m wondering if you and I don’t have it all backwards. Maybe our struggles and imperfections don’t disqualify us from reaching out to others after all. Maybe they are, indeed, the very things that give us not just credibility, but compassion as well.
    For example, I have a couple friends who have experienced depression, as I have. When I feel myself slipping back into the abyss that claimed my life for several years, these are the women I turn to. Do they have all the answers? No way. Sometimes they still struggle too!
    But the real reason I turn to these friends isn’t for their solutions. It’s for the passion I see in their faces when they look me in the eyes and say, “I know you’re tired. But please hang on. You can get through this.”
    The truth is, accountability and encouragement coming from someone who appears to have her own life completely “together” can feel stifling and obtrusive.
    But accountability and encouragement coming from a friend who has scars and wounds of her own is both humbling and empowering.
    Am I Superwoman? No way.
    Are you Superwoman? I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here by saying “Fat