Feeling guilty and overwhelmed because you aren’t living up to the standards of being a good mom?
Embarrassed because your house isn’t as clean, your kids aren’t as well behaved or your cooking isn’t as good as you believe it should be?
Wondering why you aren’t “doing it all?”
Well, listen….. whose house are you comparing it to? Who do you know that has a perfectly clean house, perfectly well-behaved children and a fabulous homemade meal on the table every night? Noone I know!
I went to a fabulous retreat a couple years ago about being a mother. We did an exercise that has stayed with me and I think of it often (thank you Karen Gustafson).
First of all, we all created a list of what we thought a good mother is or does. As you might imagine it was a VERY long list, including but certainly not limited to: understanding children’s behavior and dealing with them without anger or frustration, loving to clean house and do laundry, looking “put-together” all the time, a fabulous lover, excellent cook, organized, involved in school and church volunteer activities, seamstress, problem-solver, etc. It was amazing to me how quickly we came up with at least 50 qualities that we associated with being a good mother.
The second part of the exercise was writing down the developmental needs of kids at each phase of their lives (infant-2 years old, toddler years, preschool years, elem.school, middle school, high school and college years).
The cool part and very enlightening realization is that being a mother and tending to the true needs of children typically had very little to do with being a fabulous cook, lover, breadwinner, imaculate housekeeper, etc.
Being a good mom is tending to what kids need most, not focusing on what others think, like our own moms, neighborhood moms, society, our partners, etc.
Since when do we have to live up to artificial standards created on television, magazines and movies…..June Cleaver was an actress!! I wonder what her real house looked like.
So here’s the thing-if you’re feeling stressed out, overwhelmed and tired because you’re not living up to someone else’s standards, focus on what’s really important as a mother and tend to those things and don’t fret about what the neighbors and others might think.
And while you’re at it, take a break and do something nice for yourself!
Great post! Who are we comparing ourselves to, really? I think we gather a mishmash of images from popular media about good parenting then haphazardly apply them to our own standards. We end up self-initiating feelings of “not-good-enough”! I was lucky to attend a high school with a child development lab. We actually ran a day care/preschool and had an observation room with a one way mirror for us to take notes on real child behavior. What a valuable learning experience that was! I went on to be a sub in day care centers several years later, and was a counselor in summer camp for 5 years. Even after all that, I am still learning about the various stages of development.