Mothering

 WRITING PROMPT NUMBER 8- Mothering 

Today I am just going to share the best advice I have ever received about mothering. It's not even really advice. It was just something a mom said to me about her own life and I bet she'd be shocked if she knew how it has stayed with and shaped me. This mom was the kind that I looked up to and aspired to be like. She was maybe seven years older than me and in my observations, did everything right. But once she said, "I am just not the kind of Mom who gets up and cooks breakfast for my kids. But I am the kind of mom who will stay up late with treats and snuggle on the couch and watch movies." 

 The time my kids were little was the height of mommy bloggers and Pinterest. It was so overwhelming to have so many articles and pictures showing me just how inadequate I was as a mom. I couldn't do it all and was so hard on myself for my perceived failures. But here was someone, in the flesh, telling me that she was totally cool not being everything for her kids. She was fine with the fact that she wasn't a morning person and she wasn't guilting herself into becoming one. Her flaws didn't matter because she could recognize where she exceled. 

It sounds so simple but it meant the world to me. Suddenly it was okay that I didn't use cookie cutters to shape my kids sandwiches into something fun. It was okay that I really disliked having my toddlers "help" cook dinner. And even now, years later. I am okay with the fact that I am kind of terrible at entertaining my kids at home. I am okay with the fact that I would rather sit by the pool instead of be IN the pool with my kids. I'm okay that I'm terrible at organizing and sticking to schedules. And I'm okay that after 8 p.m. I will inevitably suddenly be grumpy and you better not knock on my door one more time or I might snap, kinda mom. 

But I am the kind of mom who loves to find fun activities and events for our family to attend. I'm the kind of mom who reads to my kids. I'm the kind of Mom who will play loads of board games or will invite them to sit on the bed with me so we can just chat for hours. I'm the kind of mom who will binge watch cheesy kid shows because my kids asked me to join them. There's a lot that is good about my mothering. My inadequacies don't detract from my capacity to love my kids in my own way. 

Of course I always want to improve, but there is real power in being able to say, "I may not be good at such and such, but I am good at..." It just makes life so much more fulfilling. 

Such a simple conversation from a late night, movie-watching Mom has made all the difference for me.