A Surprisingly Long Thought

I've been a bad blogger. That's obvious by the fact that I haven't been blogging.

I have been busy, though. Not overly busy--I do watch TV on occasion. But I keep busy playing with kids, cleaning, carpooling, hanging things on walls, snuggling, painting, eating, reading, sleeping, and all sorts of other daily mom/human things. The "eating" part probably consumes most of my time, but I do spend plenty of hours on all that parenting and living business.

Oh, parenting. Even excluding the day-to-day requirements and frustrations of having children, this parenting stuff is the most exhausting and heavy job in the world. When you become a mother, no one ever warns you how completely inadequate you will feel at almost all times of every day, both in sleeping and waking hours. No one ever tells you that, from the moment a child becomes a part of your life, you'll be wracked with worry and guilt and stresses you could never have even thought up before plunging heart first into the mysterious world of parenting. No one warns you that you'll feel overwhelmed and overjoyed and insufficient and overqualified and under qualified and bewildered and ecstatic and heartbroken and choked up and baffled and silly and completely exasperated--all at the same time.

No one warns you that, even on your best days, you'll end up on your knees at night praying to be better, praying to be kinder, praying that your kids will forgive you for your countless faults and imperfections and hopefully remember how hard you really, really tried.

Right now I feel like I've lost control of most areas of my life, but tiny successes occasionally flicker bright enough to give me some hope that I'm not letting the entire world down. I don't need much encouragement, actually. Things like managing to write down some Skyisms and Harpisms so we can remember their cuteness forever, or watching my kids sleep at night before I go to bed (a sleeping child means I managed to get my kids to sleep. In their beds!); feeding my family a healthy and balanced meal, or my kids saying "thank you" without being coached, or even just going to bed with a clean kitchen. These tiny victories manage to carry me from day to day without a trip to the loony bin. Sleep and chocolate also have a large and necessary hand in my so-called sanity.

Tonight I came across a small tidbit of advice that hit me with enough force to inspire this, a magical and rare blog post! I scrolled past an article on Pinterest while looking up a cake recipe and decided to give it a go. One small section of the article read:

"Remember that not everything your child does is a reflection of you or your parenting. That temper tantrum in the parking lot that all your friends saw? Not what everyone’s talking about. The hysterics on aisle 3 in the grocery store? Nobody else is speculating that you’re to blame. “Maybe your child was hungry or exhausted,” posits Dr. Klagsbrun. “Every meltdown is not a sign that you’re failing.”"

This paragraph is true and false. There is always someone watching and there is always someone speculating that I, the mother, am to blame for my kids' behavior. But who cares? There will always be someone to kick you when you're down. There will always be judging eyes and upturned noses to make you feel like dirt and convince you that your kids deserve a better role model. There will always be someone who thinks you can do better. And we can all do much, much better.

But that last sentence: "Every meltdown is not a sign that you're failing." That is true, and that is exactly what I needed to read. What do I care if someone else thinks my kid is misbehaving? If someone thinks my kid is misbehaving, my kid probably IS misbehaving. I'm already aware of it and I'm trying to teach my kid a better way to behave.

I'm glad some stranger somewhere wrote an article to tell strangers elsewhere that they aren't all failing at parenting. Apparently it's something I needed to hear/read, because I just released a breath I didn't know I was holding.

Kids, if you read this some day: I'm trying to be the mom you deserve! I really hope I'm not failing. I'm definitely failing at blogging. This post was only meant to be a small blurb, and now look at it! You probably didn't even read far enough to get to this part because, man, this post is really long. I can't even proof-read it. So, here's to trying harder! Hurrah!