Ramblings of an Imperfect Mother

(Disclaimer: I fully recognize that I have a wonderful child who I love and cherish. I would never give up being his mom for anything. Nor can anything compare with his unconditional love for me. But in my quest to keep things real on this blog, I must say the following is true.)

Being a mom can be hard. There are days where you think there is nothing else you'd rather be doing. And then there are days where you think, "I need to get the heck out of here." And I only have one child so far. I like to think that my patience capacity is just going to magically expand with each child I have because then I won't go completely out of my mind on the hard days. Please no one burst my bubble.

It would be easier if children came with a handbook. "Turn to page 14 for temper tantrums. If these ideas don't work, turn to page 18 for ideas of where you can hide before you throw a tantrum of your own."

But they don't. And really, each child is uniquely their own. What works for one, may not work for another. So you feel like you're reinventing the wheel with each child. Sometimes, it's just so refreshing to see another mother say "I have no clue what I'm doing, but this is what Heavenly Father wants me to do and I sure love my kids deep down inside."

Sometimes the only way to keep cool is to have some humor. One of my favorite mothering memories is when a friend at church had her sobbing daughter next to her, whining about one thing or another and my friend said to her, "Child, let's go find your mother." (Janelle, you always crack me up.) Sometimes you've got to laugh or otherwise you'll cry.

I don't think I've ever met a mom who isn't hard on herself or isn't thinking that she's failing as a mother in one way or another. It doesn't help when you get negative reinforcement from your kids yelling, "You're a bad mom!" or "I don't love you anymore!" every time they're upset. (My 4-year-old does both without ever being taught it). Or when you have other moms laud their superior mothering techniques or tell you what would work better for you and your child (as if they know your child better than you do). Bottom line is even those women are thinking that they'll never reach the lofty "good mom" status.

And this is why I laughed at this quote from Pinterest:

 How true is this?

What's a "good mom" anyways? I can bet that each mother's description is vastly different from the next and full of reasons why they do not fit this "good mom" category. We look at the next woman over who's sitting there in church, her children quietly paying attention to the speaker and you think, "Now there's a good mom." What you don't know is that she totally had a breakdown the day before because her 2-year-old pooped in the corner and then smeared it all over the wall, her 6-year-old cut his own hair, she yelled at her 9-year-old when he broke her favorite vase playing soccer inside, she burned dinner cleaning up the aforementioned calamities, and then she forgot to pick up her 12-year-old from a birthday party and the neighbor had to bring her home.

The worst thing you can do is compare yourself to the other moms around you. I promise you that it doesn't make you feel any better because you don't know what their life is truly like and besides, you're always comparing your weaknesses to their strengths. So when I'm at my wits end and I'm feeling like the worst mother in the world, I have to remind myself of this:

I am enough for my children. I am doing the best I can and that's all that's asked of me. I am doing the most important thing a woman can do in this world. And Heavenly Father will help me because they're His children too.

Now if only I could remember all of that when the going gets tough and I wonder, "What have I got myself into?"