Chasing Superwoman by Susan DiMickele Page A

Friday I’m completely exhausted. I don’t remember having homework in first grade. If I did, I can guarantee my parents didn’t have to sign a nightly homework log.
    How will I ever manage when Anna starts kindergarten? By then, I’ll be inundated with second-grade homework. The good news is I won’t be a rookie. I’ll arrive at kindergarten registration by 7:00 a.m., and Anna will get the best teacher. I’ll buy more coffee, write more letters, and pray more. Being a mother of school-aged children is something I don’t take lightly. As much as I make fun of the mafia, it’s my own insecurity and guilt that drives me to make fun of women I don’t know, who have time I wish I had and get to spend more time and energy with their kids at school than I will ever know. I can’t argue with their intentions. The mafia and I have something in common. We’re all trying to figure out what’s best for our children.
    I should have written The Idiot’s Guide to Grade School for Parents instead of this book. It would be a best seller and I’d be a very rich woman. The problem is I don’t think I could write such a book with any degree of passion. There’s simply no formula. Every time I think I have it figured out, the rules change. Kindergarten may be about face time and volunteering, but first grade is about homework and carpool. I can only guess about the expectations of second grade, let alone the years to come.
    I’m against formulas anyway, just as I’m against instruction manuals. So I decide to just live day by day and pray.
    Dear Lord, help me to trust You to take care of my kids at school. Forgive me for always trying to take matters into my own hands and battling with the system for control. Show me how to support my kids at school, even when I can’t be with them. And help me not to resent the mafia. I confess my own insecurity and pray You would take away the nagging guilt of wanting to be two places at once, and show me that You are in control, even though I’m not. Amen.

SIX
    Superwoman Goes to Hollywood
    Man looks at the outward appearance, but the L ORD looks at the heart.
    1 Samuel 16:7
    I grew up in a church that embraced the fundamentalist traditions of no drinking, no swearing, and no dancing. “We don’t drink, smoke, or chew, or go with girls who do.” Ironically, the only time I experimented with alcohol as a teenager was with my church youth group. It was a short experiment. I got sick, woke up in a fog, and quickly decided this was a “thou shalt not” worth adhering to. As for swearing, no one in my family used curse words, including me.
    But no dancing? I couldn’t deal with that.
    I have always liked the story about King David dancing before the Lord. His wife, Michal, apparently didn’t agree. She scolded him for “disrobing in the sight of the slave girls,” but David didn’t seem to care what anyone thought about him except God Himself. 1 I like that about David. Now I realize that David wasn’t dancing in the nightclub scene—he was dancing before the Lord in worship. I just genuinely appreciate his spirit of freedom.
    Late-Night Fashion
    Too often Christians are caught up worrying about what other people think and, as a result, they never make it out to the nightclubs. Not me. I have always liked the nightclub scene. People are fun to watch, and it gives me a chance to dance.
    During college I went on a mission trip to Eastern Europe with a group of other students who, like me, always figured God wasn’t against dancing. Our primary goal was to build spiritual bridges with other college students in an emerging, post-communist society. And, yes, some of our best spiritual conversations were in the nightclubs. Now that I am married with three kids, I don’t get out to nightclubs much. Shocking, I know. But every once in awhile I muster up the nerve to go out, just so I