With Mother's Day rapidly approaching, I decided to write about just that. Being a mother, and what really doesn't matter about being a mother.
Why would I write a post about what doesn't matter about being a mother?
Because an issue of perfectionism has been set forth for us to follow. Or at least make us feel pressured to follow. And we then feel VERY judged by other mothers is we aren't able to be that "perfect mother".
For our mother's, Hollywood set the example as to what, how and who a mother should be. For us, its social media. Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and probably many more sites I don't know about. We as a society have become so addicted to scrolling through our newsfeeds and searching for the latest pin, tweet, post and status update that we make that real life. But let me ask you a question. When you post on these sites, you *usually* post only your positive stuff or your greatest attempt at something. Right? Very seldomly do we post about negativity or a failed craft/project.
So, as we scroll through all of these sites, we see how perfect so-and-so is doing over there. And how so-and-so is way better at crafting than we are. And that so-and-so has a grasp on an organized house. And how so-and-so does so well about doing things with her kids. And so-and-so never has disagreements with her husband. I could go on and on. As you read/see these things you think to yourself, Well shit, I can't do that or I can't do this! I'm just not trying hard enough. I could probably fit that into our day. Ok, how do I do this or that? And then you stress over it and feel like a complete failure when you aren't able to accomplish everything you felt you needed to.
Why, why do we do this to ourselves?! Being a mother is hard work. From teaching manners to shapes, numbers, letters and colors to potty training to extracurricular activities to cleaning the house to doing laundry to making meals and many many more tasks we complete in a 24hr/7days a week period. So why put more pressure on ourselves to be the perfect mom and do crafts all the time with our kids? Or have a perfectly organized house? Or the perfect relationship with our husbands and kids? Or bake so our kids have homemade sweets instead of store bought? So on and so forth.
Why?!?! Because we feel so very pressured to do so. Society has made us feel that we NEED to do so. But the truth is we all have our strengths and weaknesses. And some areas will be stronger at times while others are weak and vice versa. What we need to do is embrace that. Embrace the strengths along with the weaknesses. None of us are perfect. Only one person on this earth has been, and that was Jesus Christ.
What I'm trying to tell you, from my experience as a single mom who can't do it all, DON'T try to do it all. DO do what you can. You know your strengths and weaknesses. You also know your kids and your husbands strengths and weaknesses. Use all of them to your advantage and you will feel as if you are the perfect mother. No one can be a more perfect mother to your family than you.
Take a moment for yourself and write down every evening what you did wonderfully. Even if it was just get out of bed to do what needed to be done so no one was a rugrat, thats perfectly fine! You did it. You mommed for the day and tomorrow is always a new day to try again. But don't beat yourself up about those days. It does more damage then needs to be done.
So always remember, nothing else in this social media world matters!
No comments:
Post a Comment