It’s Ok. No one’s perfect.
Confession time: Despite writing a blog dedicated to nonjudgmental parenting, I’ve been judging other parents for the past two years. I’m hesitant to even think about the world “post COVID”. This disease doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, but with any luck, the daily impact on our lives will lighten.
Like many parents, I’m often overwhelmed by my to-do list. For every task I cross off, inevitably two more rise to take its place. Yet at the end of a busy day, I’m often left feeling like I haven’t accomplished anything.
I had to back into a police car to recognize that my son needs to live his own life. My son has been entangled with the law for nearly ten years. In a stomach-burning flip, I saw that in the guise of love, I’d been enabling him. Me. His mother.
*An earlier version of this post mistakenly listed Kathryn Hively as the author instead of Roberta Faith Levine.
Last month we got a letter from our school district. Standardized test scores were in, and kiddo hadn’t achieved proficiency in math. Again. This time there are consequences. Come September, kiddo will be repeating algebra.
A year ago, in the office of kiddo’s newly assigned high school counselor, I had the unhappy task of trying to explain why I thought my child should repeat pre-algebra, despite having passed it.
This hike was not about proving what I could do, it was meant to show me what I can be. And modeling that for my girls. I can be gentle and compassionate with myself when I’m having a hard time.
I’m pathologically independent. Ok, I made that up, but sometimes I need to ask for help and don’t. The most I come up with is some passive-aggressive statement like “Mommy can’t do five things at once.” Not that I don’t try. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I cry in the shower and eat copious amounts of chocolate. More often, I feel overwhelmed and lose my shit. I seldom ask for help.
Before I became a SAHM, I never felt the need to escape motherhood on a daily basis. I understand how ungrateful that sounds. I can’t imagine the agony of wanting children and not having them—or losing them. I also know firsthand the pain of leaving your kids at daycare when you’d rather be their primary…
Yeah… I’m not a “Pinterest mom”.
Mrs. Pinterest, you sexy, balanced, thing you. Greeting the day bright and early so that you can implement your new “6-minute ab” routine, meditate for a few, write neatly in your mole skin journal, moving from there into your wildly acrobatic yoga routine, all whilst wearing the least-messy, “messy bun” that I’ve ever seen, and rocking those yoga pants.
“Good morning littles!” her post-workout self coos brightly to her sleepy-eyed children, patiently waiting for breakfast in their matchy matchy pj’s, as she pulls the warm pumpkin cinnamon rolls (that she made to welcome the first day of fall) out of the oven.
Ima say that again:
Pumpkin. Fucking. Cinnamon. Rolls.
My thirteen-year-old son lives, breathes, and eats baseball. Needless to say, being offered a spot on a travel team last year sounded good – really good. I could give these old bones a rest from backyard baseball, and give him an opportunity to hone his skills in a sport he really loves.
We had a few glitches in the spring travel season, however. After several missed practices and games, I had fallen off the parental travel baseball wagon. I was a failure as a sports mom.
Birthday parties scare the hell out of me, because I know, deep down inside, despite having identified, finally, so much love and beauty in the world, that I am still not as light as air or sea foam or Styrofoam or even Wd40.