![I’m doing all of the “right” things - kissing booboos, limiting screen time, engaging in meaningful play and sitting with their big feelings…
When all is said and done, and they’re tucked into their beds...I’m reflecting on my day and can only seem to recall all the times I wasn’t patient enough, I wasn’t present enough...I wasn’t enough. But why?
Shame.
Before I became acutely aware of the shame voice inside of my head, I let the emotion run my life. I could never be convinced that I was a “good person” - my inner narrative continued to tell me that it would all come to the surface at some point and EVERYONE would know. This bled into my parenting and I would spend my evenings thinking about the things I did “wrong” that day to confirm that I was, in fact, a “bad mum”.
If you’re a shame-feeler, you know the game well. I don’t have a cure-all for it; I wish I did. What I do have, is solidarity.. and a question:
What if the bar wasn’t set at an impossibly high standard for mums?
What if we, as a collective, decided to stop striving to fit into this impossible blueprint that society has aggressively forced us to believe we have to?
I think we need to just do it. Let’s start accepting that we are going to fail, but then reflect on the failures and fail BETTER next time. Let’s acknowledge that we cannot be everything to everyone, we simply can’t do it all - there will be missed birthday parties, your child won’t get to do every single sport, sometimes they’re going to have chicken nuggets twice in one week (okay, maybe twice in a day, let’s be honest) AND we will, occasionally lose our patience with our [insert toddler, child, preteen, teen]at some point.
And you know what? When all of those things happen? And you sit down on the couch in the evening to reflect on the day... Let yourself remember that in those moments; you were showing your child your humanness.
Humanity=empathy.
And I’m damn sure we all want to raise empathy-feelers over shame-feelers🤍](https://scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.29350-15/462605593_2907454399411969_6673352685751331948_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=106&ccb=7-5&_nc_sid=18de74&efg=eyJlZmdfdGFnIjoiRkVFRC5iZXN0X2ltYWdlX3VybGdlbi5DMyJ9&_nc_ohc=AdyuczD-uc0Q7kNvwGuPV9h&_nc_oc=AdlwwtGtpei5Ftd-E-xvLTgnxsGlA-91iTnkd-iXmIbsAKTxfoIZKRdqpQ66y2qwSe8&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-2.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=MEfCT0Oo4EUxuvqbsUfBkg&oh=00_AfmacVqAYReK903wCxjVpu7BcqpOj46rRe8cXMiWbRPpYA&oe=694BE69E)
I'm not just parenting them - I'm meeting myself.
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Motherhood doesn't mean losing who you're meant to be...
When you become a mum, suddenly, the person you were before feels a bit like a fever dream. It’s not that I want to be her, but I do miss her.. And that’s ok. I felt so sure of who I was before I had kids - I was still young and had big dreams. I was a Child and Youth Counsellor starting her career, we had just bought a house; y’know, we did all the things. My big dreams wouldn’t be achieved, though, until I became a mum. I had images of what it meant to be a mum, being the
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