This summer and now cusp of fall has been a challenge for me as a mother.  Theoretically, I know that I should look for the ways the rain has brightened our lives despite the increasing cabin fever.  There are people who have much more terrible things happening in their lives than incessant rain when you’re used to clear skies, right?  Right.

Over and over again I read articles telling me how to look on the bright side about things.  

And that is a perfectly fine thing to do!  Looking on the bright side isn’t bad.

But I’m going to confess something here.  

Sometimes I just don’t want to.

I know, I know, being optimistic and making the most of the rain or whatever annoying situation one finds herself in is a good thing.  But much like telling our children to eat whatever’s on their plate (“Those pickled beets are healthy for you, you need to take four bites because you are four.”), sometimes as the adult, can I admit for all of us that sometimes you just want to ditch the pickled beets and eat the chocolate covered pretzels from the pantry?  Sometimes we just want to complain. We know it’s not the best thing to do, but complaining as an adult is often just a way to blow off steam. It’s not being ungrateful. It’s not being blind to bigger problems.

Should you complain to a person experiencing those bigger problems?  Probably not! (Remember, always dump out, not in!)  But complaining with other people who are in your same general boat is, in my mind, a form of survival when you’ve got little kids driving you a little bananas.  

So the next time a mama friend (or any friend really!) complains to you, avoid the knee-jerk reaction to fix it.  We all want to make things better for our friends, but sometimes the best thing of all you can do is listening to the complaint, whether it’s about the kids getting cabin fever from extensive bad weather or a day that just didn’t go very well.  

We all have to eat the pickled beets* of life sometime, but it’s not ignoring the world’s suffering to be glum about it sometimes, too.  We’re humans, and we’re trying to raise other humans, and that crap is hard even on the sunniest, brightest, rainbow-filled day when you can toss the children outside and watch them dance in fairy rings (and then start squabbling about whose turn it is to dance in the center of the fairy ring next…sigh).

So as long as you’re dumping out, not in, I say dump away.  Complain about the rain, the hurricane evacuation, get it out of your system so you aren’t letting the frustration mount and fester.  Then, go puddle jumping.

*My sincere apology to pickled beets, a food I happen to like, but which is a good example of a food no child I have met yet scarfs down like a baby Dwight Schrute