Dear Mom...You are not a failure

There are many times on social media that I see this hastag #momfail. When a mom didn’t do something they thought was a good parenting move. They forgot to give the kids fruit that day, they let their child stay in their jammies all day, etc. etc. There are so many things we can look at throughout our mom day that we could totally say #momfail. What I would like to do is tell you that you…yes you mom…are not a failure. So what, you let your kids stay in their jammies all day. Do you know how much fun that might have been for your kids? You forgot to give them fruit, missing fruit for one day isn’t going to kill them.

Perfection isn’t all it is cracked up to be..trust me…I am a perfectionist to a fault and there are many days (say 99.9% of the time) I am not perfect. I actually stress myself out and make myself sick physically trying to be perfect. Did you know that God doesn’t expect you to be perfect. If you were perfect there would be nothing to work with…nothing to attain to…nothing to work towards. We all want to be perfect…we all want our children to be happy. So here is a question for you today…did your kids laugh today…did they play happily…did they smile? Then guess what you had a pretty perfect day in my book.

I want to tell you a little secret…are you ready…are you leaning in…you are good enough. You are good enough to be the mom that you are and you are good enough to get through each day..whether you work and then come home and take care of the kids or you stay at home all day with the kids. You are good enough. Trust me I know there are moms reading this right now that have been struggling with this…Am I good enough? Do I do enough for my kids? Are my kids happy?…the answer is simply and utterly…YES!! No questions asked.

One thing I do each night before I go to bed is I evaluate my day…now I don’t evaluate it to the point of beating myself up for the things I did wrong, but I write those things down in the form of a prayer. “Dear Lord please help me to be better at not doing A.B.C.” then I wake up in the morning and look at my list again and say “Lord thank you for allowing and giving me the opportunity to be better at A.B.C.” Trust me does it improve overnight…not always, but just give God the opportunity to work in the situation and without a doubt there will be more happy times than stressful times.

We as moms really do put too much pressure on ourselves. We need to step back and look at what other people see. I constantly am asking am I doing enough are my kids good. Then when people tell me that are looking from the outside how well behaved or how we are doing good with our parenting it shocks us. What?! We are doing a good job. I guess because as moms we are in the midst of it…we don’t see what other people are seeing.

So mom…stop beating yourself up…stop asking the same questions every day. Just step back and enjoy the journey. All the stress and pressure we are putting on ourselves is allowing us to miss out on some of the most important times in our children’s lives. Just live..just love…just have fun!

–Beth