Why Moms Can't Do Yoga

Yoga. I’ve got the pants, I’ve got the mat; I just don’t have the time. I can barely remember my Warrior One pose, a casualty of motherhood as my family has grown. 

I wistfully recall my last yoga class, which if memory serves was two years ago. And I am fairly certain memory is correct.  I met a woman at the park recently who used to be in my yoga class. She was pregnant with her third child—she had one last time I saw her—and neither one of us could recall the other’s name.

Yoga, like a morning cup of coffee in peace, should be mandatory for mothers; I’m thinking about petitioning my congresswoman.

Moms work. Moms cook. Moms drive. Moms coordinate doctor’s appointments and play dates. The job is never done. Even after lights out, Moms worry. We worry about the squabble our daughter had on the playground, or whether our son’s asthma will flare up with tomorrow’s pollen count.

That one hour a day to breathe, and exercise mind and body goes a long way toward optimal mom-job performance.

The problem is that the mom-job leaves little time for that yoga class. Consider what has to happen in order for a mom to take a yoga class: She needs a free hour when she is not working, tending to domestic issues and all the kids are at school. She needs to find a class at that time. Said class needs to be close enough that one hour doesn’t turn into two, which she may not have.  

I am a regular exerciser. I walk and bike. But I yearn for yoga; there’s nothing like a good slow stretch to invigorate mind and body.  Last fall, with the kids fighting in the back seat, I decided to commit to yoga, or I would have to commit myself.

I pushed aside the coffee table in my living room and bought a DVD. The beautiful Hawaiian beach in the background was restful and I inhaled the sea salty air of my imagination as I congratulated myself for a great idea.

But five minutes in, someone asked for a drink, or sat down to have a conversation. And if the house was empty, the phone would ring or I would glance in the wrong direction and work would beckon.

I had to get out. I located a class that began at 9:30. The studio was located exactly fifteen minutes from my son’s preschool, which began at 9:15. If I arrived at 9:13, waited for the classroom to open, hurled my son and his backpack at his teacher, avoided eye contact with other parents in order to evade conversation, I could be out of the building by 9:16 and make it to the class by 9:30, as long as there was no traffic.

I put my plan into action. Everything was going according to plan at 9:17. I could feel my muscles pulsating with the memory of a long downward dog.

But as I pulled out of the preschool parking lot my cell rang. The ID announced that the number belonged to the elementary school. I briefly considered letting it go to voice mail, but I conjured the usual images moms get when the nurse calls (my children with dangling limbs? My son once had a dangling earlobe so it is not out of the realm) and answered the phone.

 “Mom, I forgot my glasses,” my daughter whimpered on the phone. “Can you drop them off?”

An unscheduled stop on my journey would kill yoga. Then I remembered my husband was home.

 “I’ll call Dad, he will bring them,” I said gleefully. Yoga on!

He would have brought them had he answered the phone. At least that’s what he said when I later yelled at him for not answering the phone—a pesky habit of his which he says is due to the fact that phone is never for him, so why bother.

It was a conspiracy; I was sure of it. My daughter, husband and the school secretary who had allowed my daughter to call me, because, well, “she’s such a good kid,” were determined to keep me and my Chaturanga apart.

Now I had a dilemma.

My policy with forgotten homework or lunch is not to bail her out, but I kept picturing her squinting to read. If I went to yoga, I would have visions of my daughter’s eyesight dropping from 20/30 to 20/75 in one short day.

My hands gripped the steering wheel as I hit the intersection. Left to yoga, right to the glasses. I chose right. What choice was there really? Yoga was ruined, even if I had gone.

I haven’t attempted yoga since. I now pretend to do yoga, which has been surprisingly effective. For example, the other day while lying with my knee in an MRI feeling sorry for myself, I realized, wait! I have thirty minutes. No kids. No house. No work. I am forced to lie still and listen to the Beatles White Album. I managed to block out the cacophony of the machine and pictured myself stretching through a variety of poses.

For now, that will have to do. Namaste.