What Grade Would You Get?
Would you give your life an A plus, a B minus, or just a measly Conditional Pass?
Last month, 2000 American moms answered 100 questions in order to grade their lives. The results were pretty fascinating:
-Moms generally think they are really good moms, giving themselves an average grade for parenting of 89.7%!
-Moms think they’re pretty much flunking at maintaining their own health (67.4 percent) and handling money (64.9)
-Something surprising and encouraging. 85% of moms said their marriages are strong. 80% would walk down the aisle with the same Mr. Right, if they had to live their lives over again.
-87% of moms say good nutrition for their kids is a top priority, but only 60 percent of moms eat healthy themselves.
-Women with five or more kids pray 76% more often than women with one child (the obvious question, is this because women with five or more kids are almost certainly religious, or because we big family moms are desperately in need of more than our share of Divine assistance? My 2 cents, probably both.)
-Moms of teenagers pray more often than other mothers.
-The age of 16 (when children can get drivers licences in most states) is a peak time for prayer.
The saddest statistic, I thought, is that the average overall grade for mothering satisfaction among American moms was just 76.5 percent, or a C+, and only 9 percent of American moms gave their lives an A.
The survey creators at MomCafe.com saw some important common characteristics among America’s happiest moms:
1. Connections outside the home (for example, friendships in one’s, workplace, church/synagogue, or through social networking sites)
2. A sense of control in day to day life (i.e. living in crisis mode is not conducive to happiness)
3. Opportunities to express talents
4. Opportunities to feel challenged
You can take a shortened version of the survey here, and grade your own life. I did it, and it was pretty eye-opening. It helped me to see what’s going well in my life, and what still requires a bit of polishing or minor (or major) surgery.
Take the survey and leave a comment to say what grade you give YOUR life…
Photo courtesy of Flickr.com user pjern
