by Lynnell Mickelsen (originally published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Sunday, May 14, 2006)

I'm only 18 years into the motherhood, so what do I know? (In truth, less and less.) But still, assuming I live to be 85' I'm one-third of the way through the marathon. And let me tell you, when it comes to endurance contests, motherhood trumps the Ironman. I mean, swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and run 26.2 miles? Big deal! Young moms do the emotional and physical equivalent every day. (It's called raising toddlers.) And then, the next morning, they get up and do it all over again. Day after day. For years..

I have three sons, ages 13, 16 and 18. The oldest is about to head off to college, which in Ironman terms, means I've just finished the 2.4 mile swim and I'm about to climb on the bike. So here's my quick Mother's Day advice for any younger moms who may have just started the race.

**** The first five years are the most insane. So give yourself credit and be kind. Young moms consistently underestimate what they're going through, starting out with pregnancy, the ultimate sci-fi experience in which women are literally invaded by an alien for 40 weeks. Followed by birth, which is like the worst possible canoe portage multiplied by 30. Followed by four or more years in which they're treated like a political prisoner in their own home---unable to sleep, eat, shower, exercise or read unless allowed by the guards, who are these short, raw and mercurial types who go from beaming to brutal in five seconds.

Three-year-olds are the absolute worst---it's like living with Saddam Hussein with PMS. Four-year-olds are only slightly better. By age five, things start settling down, although if there's another two or three-year-old in the house, it's easy to miss.

During this insanity, stay-at-home mothers are often asked by cheerful, casual friends, "So what are you doing besides just taking care of them?" (Just? Just?) Meanwhile, working moms are told, directly or indirectly, that Little Saddam is probably their fault, that if they just stayed home, he'd be an angel. (No, he'd still be three.) In the face of this pressure, I sometimes wonder why young mothers don't kill their casual friends or in-laws more often. Mostly, I think, it's because they're too tired.

****Forget the Mommy Porn, i.e. those glossy articles and books about perfect mothers and how you could be, should be just like them. Mommy Porn seems to come in two basic types: Executive Goddess and Domestic Savior. When I was a stay-at-home mom in the late 80s and early 90s. the Executive Goddess stuff was at its peak. You couldn't sit in a pediatrician's office without having to look at spread after spread of gorgeous moms who ran Fortune 500 companies and the Boston Marathon while raising perfectly well-adjusted children in their spare time.

Now the Domestic Saviors seem to be on the rise, so we have similar books and articles about gorgeous moms who sacrificed their fabulous Fortune 500 careers to stay home and raise perfectly well-adjusted children. Of course, in the case of Caitlin Flanagan, author of the latest in this genre, To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife, she had to hire a full-time nanny to take care of her kids while she wrote the book about taking care of her kids. And I assume Flanagan still has a nanny while she's on the book tour talking about why women should stay home even though she never seems to be.

But hey, that's what all Mommy Porn is all about! Fantasy! Camera shots! Platoons of nannies and housekeepers acting as stunt doubles. It's like Pamela Anderson's chest. It ain't real. But that doesn't stop women from comparing themselves to it and feeling bad. So enough. Stop. Put the Mommy Porn down.

**** Just Say No to the Mommy Wars. Face it, in this culture, no matter what a mom does, whether she works full-time, part-time or stays home, someone, somewhere, will insist she's ruined her life, her kids and the nation in general. So women might as well do what they want. Because there is no perfect life out there and in the end, very few kids actually turn out to be ax-murderers.

It's one of those small miracles to remember on Mother's Day. Okay, enough advice from me. Back to the marathon.