Male Brain Envy

Last week brought a new mommy experience my way.  The boys picked the basement for their venue of play after dinner.  I was busy completing typical mommy tasks in the kitchen and thrilled that I wasn’t interrupted once in nearly an hour!  As we headed up to bath, I noticed one boy had a black eye.  As the boys were undressing, I noticed another boy was bleeding from his hairline.  The third boy had a red and puffy face, reminiscent of a boxer’s face between rounds of a boxing match.  I could only conclude that after-dinner play had been MMA or some sort of Fight Club.  No one had cried.  Not one boy had ascended from the “ring” to report the rough play.  My mind was in horrified awe trying to imagine what had taken place.  I was left with one thought…..what is wrong with them and their brains?  

Fast forward a week.  We were hosting a classmate for the afternoon.  The three 4-year-olds made their way to the backyard and proceeded to engage in winterization of the playhouse.  The boys had rounded up hammers and a box of nails.  They spent the next hour dutifully hammering nails into the wooden play structure with the intent focus of astrophysicists.  I was thrilled that their brains seemed to have recovered from the MMA incident.  I also couldn’t help but compare the focus they put into that single activity and the five frantic tasks I completed in the same time.  

Before I knew it, I was in awe of the male brain (gasp!) and a little jealous that they can so easily pick one thing to place all their focus.  My husband has been diagnosing and attempting to repair our faulty furnace for a week.  He patiently reads blogs, watches do-it-yourself videos on YouTube, orders parts off of Amazon, and calmly installs the parts when they arrive.  He’s been through three iterations of this.  It’s his one project of the week, and he’ll be a furnace expert when it’s all said and done.  

I, on the other hand, have spent the last week running around like a headless chicken.  Prepping dinner while doing laundry and listening to the school board debate, packing a lunch while prodding the first grader to read me his book, driving to school drop-off while drilling first grader on flashcards, driving to the gym while drilling myself on a memory verse.  My life is one big juggling act of trying to keep countless balls in the air (and I’ve never been much of a juggler). 

I’ve come to realize that my multi-tasking has resulted in a sort of Attention Deficit Disorder.  I have trouble prioritizing when tasks aren’t urgent.  And activities that I enjoy, or that benefit my soul get dropped.  I’m more likely to pick up the toilet brush then a pen to write.  And I’m more likely to stand in the kitchen to prep the food that will fill our stomachs than I am to sit down with my Bible and fill my heart and mind.  Oh if only I could have the simple mind of a male;-) 

Women’s brains are intricate and complex.  God designed us to be multitaskers.  He gave us a desire to fulfill the needs of those around us.  It’s necessary that I juggle many balls throughout my day.  But it’s also necessary that I carefully pick those balls.  Maybe the ones that fill my soul should be considered a little more urgent, and who needs a clean toilet anyway?