Working Mom Who’s So “Over It” By the End of the School Year is All of Us

As working moms, holding back what we really think is our typical reality so much of the time that actually feeling our feelings might seem foreign, but can be so refreshing.

To that end, writer and mom of four Liz Petrone is our new hero—scratch that, end-of-school-year she-ro—for saying what we all want to: that we are just so fully over remembering and doing all the work that sending our kids to schoolrequires of us.

In an LOL blog-post-turned-viral-Facebook missive, Liz writes why she is literally DONE with the following:

*Signing of reading logs
*The reading of important papers
*The forcing of children to take showers
*The packing of nutritious lunches

"We've reached the point in the school year where there are only a few weeks left, and here's the thing: I no longer give any sh*ts," she writes, outlining her plan. "The end is finally in sight, and I have blissfully, with a manic grin on my face, taken my foot off of the gas pedal. I'm coasting through, just hoping we stay alive through the next few weeks."

Liz goes on to write that she’s normally the do-it-all type, “a working mama with four smallish children who miraculously has been able thus far to keep everyone clothed and fed while also not (yet) being fired." And while she started the year with the best of intentions, she realizes it’s time to admit defeat.

"It has been a gradual decline from our idealistic beginning last September of 'This is the year we organize, accomplish and clean all of the things!' to the October reality of 'Wow, this is really hard' to January's 'Well, maybe we can catch up on the weekends' to the present reality of 'SEND HELP.'”

The inciting incident for the post? Her youngest daughter woke her up screaming that she has no pants, yet again, and Liz realizes she just doesn’t have the energy required to figure it out. "I fight the urge to roll back over and close my eyes as the realization settles over me that yes, I forgot to do the laundry," she writes. "Again." (Haven’t we all.)

"'Just. Wear. Something,' I say, and this is how we get her to school in what I think is last year's Halloween costume. I contemplate sending in a note of explanation to her teacher, but that would involve opening her backpack, which I have sworn off of.”

She sums up her argument with one last and very solid point—that her kids’ teachers are likely even more done than she is. "I doubt the teacher will even notice in her I-have-been-doing-this-for-ten-months-for-the-love-of-god-let-it-end-soon haze, and if she does I hope it's with a nod of solidarity and understanding. Because June."

Has surrendering to the end-of-school struggle gods cost her any mom points? Nope. In fact, it’s the opposite. Her little girl loved being able to wear last year’s costume. "'When do I have to go back to wearing pants?'" her daughter asks. "'September,' I say. ‘We'll try again in September.’”

Here’s to us all trying again in September.