My Kids Don't Need a Perfect Mom
There I was, driving in my car, completely overwhelmed with mom guilt. I hadn’t handled everything perfectly and I felt bad.
I should have done it better. I should have been better.
I felt I should be a better mom and I began to devise a plan to never fail… ever again.
Because that’s what a good mom does, right?
Of all the things to be a failure at, we don’t want to fail at raising other human beings.
Motherhood is this big giant thing that none of us want to get wrong. There is so much that we handle, dinners, dressing our kids, school parties and activities, watching over their health, social interactions, friendship struggles, all the while trying to be sure we are raising kind, respectful, fun to be around human beings.
It’s kind of a lot of pressure.
And moms carry a lot of the load.
Sometimes as a mom it can all feel so heavy.
It is a huge undertaking to raise little humans. One big task that is built of a hundred small tasks in a day. We can easily begin to believe each of these small tasks is the breaking point to whether our children will succeed or not.
It can begin to feel like it all depends on us doing it right.
As I drove in the car that day, I had a realization. I was making a mistake, but not the one I thought I had made.
I was holding myself to an impossible standard.
Perfection.
Instead of allowing myself to be human, and simply give myself grace for the small failure. I was being too hard on myself.
As I thought about it, I realized this was a major problem.
First of all, I’m not perfect and never will be, so attempting to achieve perfection was always going to leave us all disappointed.
Second of all, even if I were, can you imagine how horrible that would be for my children?
I mean, really.
Can you imagine growing up and have a perfect person be your role model? As if, my children need an impossible bar they will never be able to reach?
My children don’t need me to be perfect. In fact, that’s the last thing they need.
They need me to fail, so they can see how I get back up. They need to see me get it wrong. They need to see me overreact, underreact, and react just right.
They don’t need me to be perfect. They need me to teach them how to be imperfect.
They need me to teach them how messy and imperfect life can be because that is the life they will have to face for themselves one day.
I do not want to raise my children in a bubble of perfection. Where nothing is ever out of place, ever forgotten, or ever mishandled.
I want to teach them about real life and lots of things to go imperfectly in life.
They don't needle to be a perfect mom. They need me to be the imperfect mom who falls on her face, owns it, gets back up, and tries again. All while giving myself grace and encouraging my kids to do the same.
What if failing is not the worst thing I could ever do as a mom, but one of the best?
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