Motherhood3

This time I want to proclaim a challenge to all the mothers and mothers-to-be out there. I have met so many women who want and try to be perfect moms. They stress themselves out and their children- needlessly. I think it is not only unhealthy, but destructive and most definitely impossible to make this one's standard. So, be free! Your kids don't need a perfect home, perfect days, perfect clothes or hair, perfect behavior, perfect adherance to growth or development charts, perfect parents and certainly not perfect mothers. Not only is there no such thing, but if there was, it would be in stark contrast to our broken world and to try to make this perfection happen when there is no such thing is absolutely ridiculous and painful to all.

My philosophy, if I may be so bold, is that there is beauty in our imperfections when we can accept them and turn them into true worth like: teacheable moments, humility, grace, forgiving and asking forgiveness... In my opinion, these gems, as demonstrated by us and thus passed on to our children, will not only allow them the freedom to be who they are, in all their imperfection, but also help them to cope with our world, with other imperfect people (including their parents), with dissappointments and faillure, with miserable days and with tragedy.

One of my favorite movies is "I am Sam". The message of it was that superior intellect is not necessarily an advantage in parenting. Without love, all our grandeur, our stuff, our status, our plans are as nothing, totally useless. And with love, the rest doesn't really matter. It is so hard for us with our tendencies to want to keep up with the Jones' or propel our kids ahead of the rest or over-controle... to just let go, be free, and love without having to fit them into a hole no one can squeeze into. And secondly to allow ourselves to be who we are and fail and say those second most important words after "I love you" which are "I'm sorry". This should be said often, more often than we think.

Having such and such program or book or regimen will not make our kids superior or happier. All they need, all we need to really prosper is love. Henry Ward Beecher said it this way: "The mother's heart is the child's classroom". That's a nugget worth chewing on!

Another one from the Lover's book is: "love conquers all". Several nights ago, Ivan was being absolutely horrible. He threw a tantrum when I took away a straw we'd been playing with, another tantrum when we brushed teeth, another one when we stopped brushing teeth, again when he wanted to watch a video instead of go to bed... Then as we were reading bedtime stories, only moments later, he looked up at me and kissed me- out of the blue!


We were excited after a huge storm to see wild lighting outside and a double rainbow. We've been reading about rainbows and I was happy for Ivan to see two real ones that night. The rainbows are messages of love after a storm. Sometimes the storms are necessary, they bring rain and strengthen trees and plants while tearing away old or weak limbs. Sometimes they bring devastation, but if we look carefully, there is always new growth that results. Rainbows are a message of love to see the beauty after the storms and remember that over it all, through it all, in it all, there is love and beauty.