“I’m a great mom!” Veronica confidently declared.
I was stunned. This was coming from a woman who readily admits to her famously low self-esteem. Insults have always struck, and then stuck straight to the center of her heart, while compliments bounce off her with complete impenetrability.
“Wow!” I said. “That’s such a bold statement. I’ve never heard any mother say that. I’ve always thought you were an amazing mom, but there are so many challenges with raising kids. What’s your secret?”
At the time I was in the midst of the early, blurry weeks of motherhood. My carefully researched parenting philosophy seemed impossible to apply to my real-life baby. All the romantic images I held of myself as a mother seemed ridiculous when faced with the reality of my hungry-but-won’t eat, tired-but-won’t-sleep, loved-but-screaming-anyway bundle of joy.
I was calling Veronica for advice. She had a decade of experience, plus she a few years working with babies in a crisis nursery, so she was an obvious mentor for me. I expected tips, techniques and encouragement. What I received was wisdom.
“When I say that I’m a great mom,” she explained. “I mean that I can live with my choices. I know I don’t have a perfect kid, and there are moments I cringe to remember, but I made informed and loving choices. I can live with that.”
[clickToTweet tweet=”When I say I’m a great mom, what it means is that I can live with my choices. #momlife” quote=”When I say I’m a great mom, what it means is that I can live with my choices.”]
What a beautiful standard to which to hold oneself. It’s so easy to get caught up in the success or failure of our choices by looking at our children. Society does it all the time. The only people on earth who receive more unsolicited advice and criticism than mothers are, perhaps, pregnant women. Most of us try to let those comments roll off our backs, but a stranger’s glare or a grandmother’s pointed observation, hit our shaky confidence with a bullet of self-doubt.
[clickToTweet tweet=”The only people who receive more unsolicited advice & criticism than moms are pregnant women. ” quote=”The only people on earth who receive more unsolicited advice and criticism than mothers are, perhaps, pregnant women. “]
Judging our ability to mother based solely on the results exhibited by our children is unfair. It ignores an important fact: we are only half of the equation. From the moment the umbilical cord is severed, our children are independent human beings. Dependent on us, but independent from us. No wonder we get confused.
Children are unpredictable. One day they gobble up all the avocados off of everyone’s plate; the next day our dining room walls are splattered green with indignation. One day they pour their heart out to us; the next day they snap when we check in on them. Tying our ability to parent to these fickle creatures is a sure way to feel inadequate. Raising children is like making cookies with one mystery ingredient: a cup of tiny white crystals. One day it is sugar and the cookies are sweet and delicious. The next day it is salt and the cookies are inedible. It’s not our fault; who can make yummy cookies with a cup of salt?
Veronica’s standard is a much better tool to measure our success. Make informed and loving choices. Read parenting literature. Talk to mentor mommies. Listen to your own heart. Try your best to understand your child. If we do all this, our choices will be both informed and loving, and we can all declare the truth with conviction, “I am a great mom!”
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