Love yourself Mommas. Just as you love those Mommas around you.
This morning, I was texting with one of my super awesomest friends on the planet. And we were discussing our kids, when I realized. In a matter of exactly 20 minutes of texting, we’d BOTH referred to ourselves as ‘bad mommas’. BOTH of us. In TWENTY minutes. We’d never think, let alone say that out loud to our own momma sisters and friends. But we so easily say it to ourselves.
Why do we do this?
The context for both of us was that we felt we each did something in the course of the day that made us ‘bad mommas’. And truth
be told, neither of us are bad mommas. But we each did something that WE, we alone, felt made us a bad mom. Crazy, silly things like taking a break from a stressful moment with our child or wanting to push our child a bit out of his comfort zone to see how he manages it. When I step back and read this text conversation as if it wasn’t mine, I want to hug these two women and tell them they aren’t bad mommas, they are brilliant mommas. They are mommas that love their children, but are realizing their limits. They are mommas that believe in their children, but want to help their children believe it. They are mommas that get overwhelmed. They are mommas that are tired, weary, worn-the-heck-out. I don’t know a momma out there that hasn’t yelled, screamed, or said something that she later regretted. Come to think of it, I don’t know a HUMAN who hasn’t done so. These mommas, they are HUMAN. And to be human is to be imperfect.
What would I say to a momma friend that came to me and said, ‘Ugh…I’m a bad mom, I yelled at my kid. I lost it in the moment and had to walk away.’ I wouldn’t reinforce her opinion. I would try and change it. I would try and remind her that she is a GREAT momma. She is a HUMAN momma. And that we all reach our stress limits. We all struggle to maintain poise, patience and perfection. And that, therein, lies the problem. We think…we expect perfection of ourselves. Why do we do this? I don’t think we expect it in others, let alone our children. So why do we expect it in ourselves?
Of course it is important to stretch ourselves. To learn and grow and strive to be better. But not at the cost of our own self worth and endless expectation of perfection. Challenging ourselves to be better, do better, is good – so long as our end goal is not perfection. So long as we have no end goal at all, really. We show up, we do our best to be our best. Sometimes, somedays – our best just doesn’t show. And that’s okay.
Mommas – we have the hardest job in the world. We do. We need to allow ourselves to know that by showing up, we win. Love wins. We need to allow ourselves to have bad days, and we need to love ourselves through those bad days. Because, that’s what we teach our children, don’t we? That having a bad day is okay, but there’s always a new tomorrow? That one bad moment is a chance to learn, and grow, and accept ourselves for all of who we are?
So that. Let’s do that. Let’s love ourselves as we love our children. As we love our momma sisters and friends.
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