The mummymug minimizes the risk of spilling hot beverages, ensuring a safer environment for children.’

The Mission Statement of Family Enterprises Inc.

Yes­ter­day, Susan Fox of 24/7 Moms sug­gested in an inspi­ra­tional post that as Mums, we should start with the end in mind and define a “Mom Mis­sion State­ment”.

Defin­ing a Mis­sion State­ment might sound as some­thing for­mal­is­tic that only orga­ni­za­tions do.

But I agree that it is a good idea. A good mis­sion state­ment indi­cates what the pur­pose of the orga­ni­za­tion is. Par­ent­ing and fam­ily life eas­ily slips into an end­less, daily rou­tine full of end­less activ­i­ties, where we eas­ily lose direc­tion and keep push­ing really impor­tant things out, as we focus on fire­fight­ing the urgen­cies that keep com­ing our way. Mak­ing a Mis­sion State­ment is of course noth­ing more com­pli­cated than stop­ping and think­ing about what the long term goals are  our pur­pose as Mums, and as a fam­ily. The mere process of doing so gives per­spec­tive and valu­able point­ers at every cross-roads for which direc­tion we should take.

A Mis­sion State­ment for Moth­er­hood requires that we ask our­selves what the goal of par­ent­ing and of hav­ing a fam­ily really is.

Susan con­cludes that her Mom Mis­sion is that she wants her chil­dren to suc­ceed in school, to learn to read and study. She wants them to learn to han­dle their finances when they are older, learn to con­sider oth­ers before them­selves and to have a sense of grat­i­tude. To make friends, eat healthy and play sports; to learn that say­ing “sorry” leads to last­ing rela­tion­ships. To cook for them­selves, to do laun­dry and clean a bath­room. She won­ders if her goals for her son should be the same as for her daugh­ter.  She breaks down her ques­tions into cat­e­gories: Aca­d­e­mic, spir­i­tual goals, life skills, friend­ship  and fam­ily fun goals.

I think Susan is off to a great start. What my child should take with her into adult­hood is of course an essen­tial part of what I like to achieve as a Mum and I can sub­scribe to most goals on Susan’s list. And if I had a son, I would cer­tainly not leave out the cook­ing and the laun­dry skills!

But when I keep on think­ing, I con­clude that I am more on a Fam­ily Mis­sion than a Mum Mis­sion.

My Mis­sion State­ment would be about all the peo­ple in the fam­ily — thus also about the goals for Mum and Dad as a per­sons in their own right, and these can­not be seen sep­a­rately from what the kids should learn or do.

The dynam­ics and inter­ac­tion between all fam­ily mem­bers would also stand cen­tral in my Mis­sion State­ment — how we share respon­si­bil­i­ties, share ben­e­fits and how we com­mu­ni­cate with each other. How we bal­ance the time, energy and money we spend on activ­i­ties inside and out­side the family.

I would also not leave out how we, as a fam­ily, relate to the world around us. How ‘green’ we should aim to be, and how we should view our respon­si­bil­i­ties vis-a-vis peo­ple around us.

And finally — I would like to empha­sise the value of liv­ing together in the moment — not only get­ting some­where.

Seems I have to have a good chat to my hus­band and my daugh­ter before I dig any deeper into this!

Thus — to be continued.

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