Monday, February 11, 2013

Now back to the lecture at hand...





Last week, I found myself in a situation that, for me, was completely foreign.  For once in my life, I was the mom who looked like I had it all together.  I had gotten up a bit early that morning (very rare), gotten myself and the kids bathed and dressed, actually fixed my hair instead of just putting it up in a pony tail, dropped my daughter off at preschool, and then taken the car to be washed.  I had just returned from a road trip to North Carolina and the Mini was, needless to say, filthy inside and out.  After I got the van washed, I cleaned the inside out thoroughly (another rarity).  

When it was time to pick up my daughter, I pulled into the preschool parking lot and was occupied getting my son out of the van.  The mom in the car beside me dropped her jaw and stopped me to ask how in the world I was able to have it all together and keep things so tidy.  For a brief moment, I was tempted to pretend that I was the perfect mom.  I felt like saying, "What do you mean?  My van and my children always look like this.  Of course I'm never stressed out or running behind."  (Yeah right!)  In actuality, I did not say anything of the sort.  I told her the truth.  That we had just returned from a road trip and that earlier that morning my car had, in fact, looked like a trash can had exploded on the inside.  

Sometimes we, as mothers, try to hold ourselves to an unattainable standard.  We look at the mother in the nice, clean van at preschool and think to ourselves, "Why can't I have it all together like that mom does?".  We compare ourselves with other parents all too often.  We tend to let jealousy and envy make us feel like we aren't good enough.  The truth is, no one has it all together all of the time.  We all have our hectic, messy, running around like chickens with our heads cut off moments.  

My life has gotten so much less stressful since I realized that I will never be perfect.  This was not an easy realization for me to make.  As a new mom, I strived to be what society thought of as the ideal mother.  After my daughter was diagnosed with autism, I realized that life is about so much more than the appearance of perfection.  It is completely normal to be a little frazzled at timesEven we as moms don't always have to have it all together.  Our kids need to know that it is OK to not be one hundred percent together one hundred percent of the time.   Showing our kids that it is perfectly fine to be less than perfect teaches them that they don't have to fit some idealistic standard that society has cultivated.

We are raising a culture of "keeping up with the Joneses" kinds of kids.  It sometimes seems to be all about who's child is the smartest, who's child is the best athelete, who's child is the most well behaved.  I know that we should instill the core value of doing your best in all things, but we need to stop hammering the need for perfection into our kids and just let them be kids.  When they grow up, they will learn all too quickly that none of them are perfect.  There will always be someone who is smarter, faster, or just plain superior when they compare themselves to the world around them.  I think it is much more important to teach them to be happy with who they are as individuals. Strive to instill good morals and values all the while allowing them to be their imperfect little selves.  As long as they strive to do their best and be contributing members of society, those are the only things for which they need to hold themselves accountable.