Are Mom's Too Hard On Themselves?

 
By Brenda Hyde

Have you noticed how hard Moms are on themselves? We need to allow ourselves a mistake or two along the way. We are not going to scar our children for life if we are late picking them up from school because we couldn't find our keys. We are are not going to turn them into uni-bombers because we give them frozen waffles this week instead of pancakes. As much as I love the Sound of Music we cannot sew all of their clothes, clean the house, help with homework, teach them to sing, and sit around and play the guitar all day. Surely we would all love to romp through the fields singing instead of running our businesses or working, but it's just not going to happen.

What we can do is love them with all of our hearts, and go from there. We can be honest with ourselves about our shortcomings and work on those. I think the most important thing we can give ourselves is the knowledge that we are great Moms, and we love our kids and everything else is icing on the cake. Last week as I was rushing the kids to their classrooms and feeling a little stressed, I said hello to a teacher and told her that I like to stand there until my first grader actually goes into the classroom, but I stand back a little bit to give him "space". We laughed and she made the comment that I was a great Mom. For some reason I had to let that compliment sink in a little. When I was at the house and we were rushing around getting ready, I didn't feel that great. In fact, I felt disorganized and impatient. Now I realize I need to give myself a break and see myself the way that teacher does. It's ok to have a bad morning. We can love our kids and not be perfect.

The problem is we see television and read magazines that tell us we should all be Martha Stewart, Heloise and Supermom wrapped into one. I think we need to take more of an Erma Bombeck type of approach. Our house may get messy, we may be late sometimes, we may miss an appointment here or there, but we have love and laughter under our roof. Those two things can carry a family through a crisis, the holidays and yes, even a frantic morning.

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