I currently work as a principal in Northern California. Our site, similar to many others in California, has been heavily impacted by the reduction in state funding for education. A while back, I was talking to my staff about the positions that would be reduced or eliminated due to budget cuts. As I finished reviewing the list, I said to my teachers that I didn’t know who was going to assume the duties of all those critical people. One of them jokingly replied, “Well I guess you’ll be wearing a few more hats.” On the outside I chuckled with them, but internally I wondered how in the world I was going to balance one more hat on my head!

This is often the dilemma that we mothers find ourselves in – wondering how we can successfully wear more & more hats. The kids are fighting, so we throw on our police hat; our husband can’t find his power tie, so we throw on our detective hat; we head out to work, so we throw on our business hat. After work, it’s time for the chef hat, maid hat, and tutor hat. The weekend comes and we decide to tackle our teenager’s room, so we throw on our hardhat. Our kids are involved in weekend activities, so we throw on our cabbie hat. The expectations can be overwhelming.

A few years ago, while in the midst of feeling weighed down by motherhood, a passage from Ecclesiastes popped into my head, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun.”  It became crystal clear to me that I needed to find the joy in my current circumstance because there would come a time when the house would no longer reflect my daughters’ presence, when the walls would no longer reverberate with their laughter, and when I would not see their beautiful smiles every day.

While I still struggle to successfully wear so many “hats”, I recognize that it’s only for a season. I also appreciate that there are some really cool motherhood “hats”: the cheerleader hat for my daughter’s first base hit; the doctor hat for the successful repair of a broken Barbie arm; the artistic hat for scrapbooking together; the architect hat to construct a hide-out from blankets and kitchen chairs; the inventor hat for making new creations at the yogurt shop. The best hat of all though, the big, sparkly crown that is especially reserved for “Queen Mommy” during princess play.