A Good Mother

So I was trying to be good and slide in under the wire on tonight's topic for NaBloPoMo, but the site is down, so I can't get the writing prompt for tonight. I do remember looking at it last night and it was something about balancing family and work and such, so here are my thoughts on being a Mom.

Moms (and women in general) are much too hard on themselves. We expect ourselves to be superheroes. From the moment that we find out we are pregnant every decision we make involves another human being, what we eat, how much we sleep, the activities that we do. We feel guilty for everything, when we are at work we feel guilty for not being with our kids, when we are at home we feel guilty for not getting more work done. When we go to the gym we feel like we are being selfish for taking time away from our kids and when we are at home we feel guilty for not exercising more! When we are playing with our kids we feel guilty for not cleaning up the house, and when we are cleaning the house we feel guilty for making them play alone.

Now I am not stupid. I do know that there are some incredibly crappy moms out there. I have seen them in the hospital and you can already tell on the day that their babies are born that they better change their priorities or they are not going to take very good care of their babies. It is disheartening to see moms that do drugs or have other unhealthy behaviors that can have babies so easily and have 7 babies that have all been taken away from them, especially when there are women out there who so desperately want to be a mommy and have done everything right, but can't conceive or have had disrupted adoptions. That is a topic for another day though. The point is, I know there are bad moms out there.

What I am going to talk about is what makes a good mom. A good mom loves her kids and wants the best for them. Sometimes that means she gets the amazing privilege of staying home full time with them. Sometimes that means she works outside of the home so that they will have food on the table or clothes or a warm house to live in. Sometimes she works outside of the home because it makes her a better mom when she is at home.

I have things that I believe in strongly and do for my girls, but know that those decisions are not for everyone. I am a Breastfeeding Educator and obviously think that is important. I encourage my patients to breastfeed but realize that this is not realistic for every mom. I think that a good mom feeds her baby, either by breastfeeding or formula feeding, or by giving homemade baby food or store bought baby food. I think a good mother puts diapers on her baby's bottom and changes them often. That could mean that she uses cloth diapers or it could mean that she uses disposables.

A good mother reads to her children often! A good mother encourages creativity and curiosity. Some moms know that they can teach their children the best and choose to teach them at home. Some moms know that school teachers can teach their children the best and choose to send them to school outside of the home. A good mom knows her children and knows that the option that she chooses for her first child may not be what works for her younger children. A good mom finds every opportunity she can to teach and guide her children.

There are so many controversial topics surrounding motherhood and child rearing. Why do we feel the need to compete with one another? What gives us the right to impose our beliefs about parenting onto another mother? Why can we not just encourage and support each other instead of tearing each other down or trying to compare our children's accomplishments?

We can never truly understand what another mother is going through unless we get to know each other. Instead of looking down on someone because you think they are making poor decisions what would happen if we actually tried helping each other out? What if instead of saying, "Wow that mom does not have it all together. She is yelling at her kids and they are so unruly!" we offered to watch our girlfriend's kids so she can go to the store by herself. It may be the only quiet time she gets for the week! It could be that she's yelling at them because she is so tired that she is working all the time at home and outside of the home and she is still worried that she won't have enough money to buy groceries.

It's time that we stop trying to compete with one another and start helping each other out. A lot of moms are really lonely and tired. They love being a mom and they love their kids, but they get isolated because they don't have time to hang out with friends anymore and they also need someone to understand and encourage them.

The other thing we need to do is give ourselves a little bit of grace. Being a mother requires a huge amount of emotional and physical energy! We make up stories, wipe bottoms, change diapers, make meals, nurse babies, dress up, make up games, schedule and go to appointments, take kids to school, help them with their homework and the list goes on and on! Those are just the things that we do when we are with our children. On top of that a lot of us work outside of the home and have other responsibilities there. We must realize that we can't do everything and that taking care of ourselves is just as important as taking care of our children.