Mr. Mom: Cheesy 80s Movie or Inspiration to Us All?

A few days ago as Tuco napped, I laid on the couch watching Mr. Mom, feeling exhausted and lacking any motivation to get up and tackle my long to-do list. Just like Mr. Mom himself, my brain was like oatmeal. If Tuco was old enough to color outside of the lines, I probably would have yelled at him for doing it. 

It turns out this was the best movie  I could have been watching because somehow it improved my state of mind.

At a pivotal point in the movie, Mr. Mom realizes that he’s let himself and the house go, and he has to pull it together. The theme from Rocky plays and Mr. Mom is shown shaving off his unkempt beard, fixing up things around the house, cleaning like a champ, whitewashing a fence, taming Jaws the vacuum cleaner, and exercising with his stay-at-home friends. All this leads to him becoming the master of his days at home. A super dad-husband combo. A Mr. Mom for the ages.

That’s when I realized I had to cut the crap and start hearing the theme from Rocky, “Eye of the Tiger” or some other song from the Rocky series and start working on my own montage where I kick a little ass and get things done.

Sometimes I’m overwhelmed with keeping up on the many day-to-day household tasks that need to be done, continuing projects/activities that I like to/should do for myself, and making sure that Tuco has what he needs to be continually learning and having fun and feeling cozy and developing independence and sharpening motor skills and a hundred other things I want to provide for him.

Jeez, sometimes I just want to tell the voice in my head to shut its yap.

Yeah, Tuco’s the world’s greatest baby, and I want to do all I can for him. But getting so overwhelmed to the point of accomplishing nothing and worrying that I’m not doing enough doesn’t help Tuco or me. So what if I haven’t been as productive as I’d like? Big deal. It doesn’t mean I can’t get back into things and feel productive again. No one can do it all all the time. Even parents with two nannies and a maid can’t do it all either, hence the nannies and maid. We’re all just trying to do our best to handle whatever’s on our proverbial plates.

So thank you, Mr. Mom, for being an unlikely source of inspiration. Somehow, Mr. Mom became a mirror I looked into and I did not like what I saw. But don’t feel bad for me because Mr. Mom also helped me snap out of it and get back to work. And I don’t know exactly what it was–could it really be a simple as seeing a stay-at-home parent in a Rocky-esque montage? Whatever works, right?

Advertisement