off the perfect parent hook
Mom confession #1: Kicking my kids out of church on Sunday.
Mom confession #2: Hating (loooathing) family dinners..
Mom confession #3: Refusing to take my kids to the library.
Mom confession #4: Lecturing a kid for something they didn't do.
Mom confession #5: Lecturing..
You guys, this is just a baby list. It's not even close to complete. There was that time I accidentally locked the baby in the house....with the keys. Or that time we took a bunch of family photos at an amusement park before we noticed one of the kids walking around looking for us, not in the family picture. If I listed all my mom confessions, the list wouldn't even fit on the internet.
When Wonderhubs and I talked about having kids, this is not what I pictured. I mean first of all, our plan included one, maybe two kids! So thankful God had other plans! But, seriously, I was going to be such an amazing mom and our kids were going to be the most wonderful people to grace the face of this planet. We knew there'd be a couple years of diapers and the like, but once we got through that, we figured we'd be having tea parties, playing catch and living in a 1950s sitcom where the kids would make a few laughable mistakes, but being the great parents we were, we'd just use those mistakes to teach them a valuable lesson. They'd get up, hug us and run up to their clean room, thankful for having such neat parents.
At no point in this dreaming phase, did we consider that we'd need to say, "You can not pee off the upstairs landing into the hallway below." At no point, did we think, "the shear volume is going to be unthinkable." At no point did I think that taking my children to the library would be a form of pure torture followed by two weeks of trying to find a lost book. I had envisioned the sweetest family dinners. Ours consist of trying to hear each other over the shear volume emitted by this people, trying to make sure no one says anything completely inappropriate, reiterating that I am NOT a short order cook, apologizing for putting the cheese sauce on the macaroni and cheese, and trying to catch escapees who run past us squealing and occasionally sans clothing.
This is not what I thought parenting would look like. And that's OK. This parenting thing? It's hard. Kids make bad choices. Moms have bad days. Dads have bad days. That doesn't necessarily mean you're doing it wrong.
There are no perfect parents. They are a myth, a made up story that for some crazy reason, we're all still trying to be. And there are a million voices...our own parents, our peers, the professionals, the internet. There's no end to all of the advice and best practices and lists of what not to do. And shoot! I'm doing 3,972 things I shouldn't be and I'm doing the 4 things I should be doing all wrong!
There are lots of parents trying really hard and still feeling like they're not getting it right. I am. All the time. Maybe you are too? So sister, tune it out. Community with each other is so important, but figure out who your community is. Who are the voices you want to listen to? You need people who can say hard things to you and you need to be able to hear those things. You need to be able to trust those things because you know they're coming from a true friend, someone who loves you and yours enough to say them.
You can decide which voices you let penetrate. There will be times you need to smile and nod and just move past someone's ideas. Not necessarily because they're wrong, but because they're not you. And that's OK. We need to let each other parent differently without being offended or insecure because of it.
So Mama, you know your kids. You know their needs. You know how they operate, what makes them tick, what shuts them down. Do what you need to do. Tell them you love them. Show them you love them. Tell them their Creator knows them and loves them.
You're doing a good job, Mama, Keep at it. Stay strong. Even when it doesn't look like you thought it would. Even when the voices threaten to drown you. Be faithful with every last weary bone in your body to that which you were called.
