The Myth of the "Perfect Parent" and the Encouraging Reality

I love my mom. I mean I really love my mom. She is the "stuff" that 'good moms' are made of. She is kind, selfless, patient, honest, and unconditionally loving. She is an excellent example of what the man upstairs may have had in mind when he created mothers. To say my mother is among my dearest friends is one of the truest statements I could make.

When I was growing up I thought my mother was perfect, or nearly so. She rarely appeared to have a bad day. She could find the silver lining in nearly any situation. She loved my dad, and even smooched him in the kitchen every now and then. And, yes, even though I pretended to be completely appalled at my parent's "PDA" I secretly loved it.

Because of my mother's excellent example I believed that motherhood would be relatively simple. Although I knew I would have my moments, I was certain there would be many moments that resembled a Hallmark greeting card or a Lifetime Television movie. I thought love for my child would come instantly and would rarely be tested. I believed I would be able to selflessly give to my children just as my mother had done. In my imagination I would still be able to do nearly everything I had done in the past in terms of household tasks, meal preparation, and daily self-care. Then I had a child.

When my husband and I brought our son home from the hospital (after an unplanned emergency C-section) I remember sitting on the couch and looking at him as he sat in his infant seat. He looked at me as if to say, "Who are you?" and I looked at him in much the same way. Although I knew quite a bit about this little person who had grown inside of me for the past months, there was so much I didn't know, and a windfall of questions flooded my mind like the rush of a tidal wave. What if he cried? Wasn't I supposed to know what his cries meant? Why wouldn't he "latch on" to nurse? I thought babies were born with the sucking reflex. Why won't he sleep...at all? Why does he keep looking at me like I am a stranger, and when was the last time I brushed my teeth?

I remember feeling tremendously disappointed in myself because every day brought new discoveries of things I did not know. I believed I was failing as a mother, and I just knew I was doing major damage to my firstborn. How did my mother do it? For that matter, I wondered, how did any mother do it? Finally, I swallowed my pride and shared my concerns with my mother. OK, I cried and she listened. I expected her to tell me that I was missing a number of important concepts, or that I was so far off the mark that I needed to seek professional help. Instead the seasoned mother sitting before me offered nothing but reassurance and encouragement. She said many things, but what I remember most is her telling me that my son didn't know any more about being a baby than I knew about being a mother, and that we were both learning every day. She also reminded me that it is often through our mistakes that we learn the most. Today I pass that information along to my fellow parents, no matter how experienced they may be.

Parenthood does not come with an instruction manual, and even if it did, the manual would not likely be "one size fits all". Every parent is different. Every baby is different. Just when we think we have parenting figured out we have another child who is completely different, or our child shows us yet another thing we do not know.

In short, perfection in parenting is in the eye of the beholder, and as beholders we would do ourselves a big favor if we cut ourselves some serious slack. As parents we will make mistakes. There will be times where we will wonder why we did or said what we did. We may lose our temper, have selfish moments, or even long for our pre-parental days. However, the silver lining in all of this is that each new day brings a clean slate and a new opportunity to teach and learn from our children. After all, although our children have never been babies before, they really do a pretty good job. If they can do it we can too!

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