I have had days when my husband is away and I’ve gotten everything done fairly flawlessly, including getting the kiddo fed, played with and in bed without many antics.
Today was not one of those days.
95% of it went well. The 5% that didn’t, though, makes me feel like the worst mom in the world.
You know, there’s a huge responsibility in parenting. There is nature, yes, but there is most definitely nurture. When I have days like today, that scares me a bit. To be a part of shaping his future self can be exciting at times, but I honestly shrink from it too. What if I screw him up? What if he goes through therapy some day and the fingers all point back at me? What if he turns away from me at some point, never to turn back?
I absolutely hate it when I let myself feel this way. Yet sometimes I do.
There’s this wonderful thing built into children…..we often don’t realize it’s there because we’re trying so hard to be perfect because our children deserve only perfection, at least that’s what we want for them so we expect to be that for them. However, children are born with a natural instinct to forgive, and not just forgive but forget and move on. Ten minutes after you have a bad moment your child has forgotten it. While you beat yourself up and worry…they have moved on. It’s this amazing gift they have because no one has taught them to live in anything but the now.
My son will be 16 on November 22nd. I have had many regretful moments. However, I have come to realize that he doesn’t want perfection…he just wants love. Love is always there, even in my worst moments. I have found myself apologizing to him only to have him say, “What are YOU talking about?” Because he has moved on already. I still recommend apologizing because my son has learned the most from me because I have admitted that I too am only human and in my flaws I learn how to be better and therefore so can he. A perfect Mommy doesn’t exist, but a Mommy who loves her child…is perfection. We just don’t always realize this.
You will remember the rain from today, Devin will remember the sunshine from today.
She’s right, Lor. Drew long ago (rightly) absolved me of any responsibility for the bad choices he’s made in his life. We raised our 3 the best we could and yeah, there were plenty of bad moments (which of course I remember), but I see in them every day the results of their solid upbringing and the unconditional love and understanding they ultimately got at home.