Stop The Mom Shame
Before I tell this story I am going to ask you not to judge me. This is a judge free zone. 😉
Here we go!
One day, Clay was out of town and I decided to take the girls over to my Mom’s to hang out. We ended up just staying the night. I fell asleep with the Monitor on full blast on my nightstand. I am known to be a light sleeper but the next morning I woke up at noon not knowing where I was. I took off running downstairs to find my kids. I see my Mom with my children… all I could say was, “I’m so sorry! What happened?”. Thinking maybe there was a chance she took the monitor to help me with them.
She told me that she woke up to the sound of children yelling, “MAMA!!!!!” and crying. She got them out of bed and went upstairs to check on me. I was totally asleep and the monitor was by my face on full blast. She decided to let me sleep but hours went by and she got concerned because she knows my history of light sleeping. She came in again and checked to see if I was breathing and as I am writing this post to you... I am fully alive. She told me she guesses I was just so tired that I didn’t hear anything. I felt so horrible but was glad that it happened with her there. Maybe in my subconscious I knew she was and so I kept sleeping but that’s terrible too because I didn’t sleep at her house for her to help me.
If you are friends with other Moms then maybe you swap your stories like men do war stories. As you laugh or cry and strive to make the people around you feel better... on the inside you beat yourself up. Mom shaming is a real thing but I think the worst kind is the shame we put on ourselves. We think “I should have done _________ . How stupid am I?” or “Why am I not like that Mom and why is this so hard?”. We begin to beat ourselves up and look at all the things we are not as Mothers and as people.
Before you became a Mom you probably had a picture or vision of how that would go. It’s kind of like, before I got married I told my husband I couldn’t wait to cook. Not sure why I had that delusion as I never enjoyed cooking before but maybe the perfect wife would take over my body and I would love it suddenly. I registered for all kinds of cookbooks. Then I opened a cookbook and thought, “What the heck are all these ingredients?!”. I spent two hours in the grocery store and was almost in tears. After laying down my pride, I asked people to help and they did. It’s too bad I couldn’t bring them home to help me make it. I made our first dish and it was so bad we couldn’t eat it.
Kids are way more complicated than cooking but they are similar in many ways. People have books about how to parent just like the many they do on how to cook. These books are filled with methods that work for some and don’t for others. Just like cook books we want quick fixes to the best meal of our life but many times that’s not reality. We just have a bunch of ingredients we don’t recognize and it feels like we are failing.
The truth is, we are not going to get everything right and our kids don’t need us to be perfect. They just need us to love them and be open about our flaws while exemplifying the desire to be better because that’s who we are.
The more you cook the better you get if you ask yourself questions like, “Why am I such a bad cook?” Or “Why do I keep trying?” that is also very shaming. Imagine if every time you wished the outcome was different instead of “Why” you asked, “What can I do differently next time?” Or “What didn’t work about this?”. I read this quote recently that says,
“ Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again.” - Henry Ford
Asking “What” is forward moving but “Why” can often feel like you’re just stuck in what you’re not. Stop comparing yourself to the seemingly Supermoms of the world. God doesn’t need you to be them, didn’t make you to be them, and never asked you to be them. Your child doesn’t need them, they need you.
So how... after feeling “terrible” like I said did I choose to see it. I decided that I was grateful my kids were safe. I was grateful my Mom was willing to help me because we all need it. I was grateful I got to sleep in. I was grateful they got time with their Precious (Grandma name) and I didn’t need to beat myself up because really this was a WIN for everyone.
EVEN, starting out this blog asking you not to judge me... honestly who cares. You may feel like you have totally been there or worse or you may feel like “What kind of Mom does that?”. Does how you feel matter to my children or affect how they are loved? Does it do any good or help in any way? NOPE!
My challenge to us today is to stop shaming ourselves. Do your best. Love your children and ask yourself “What” instead of “Why” when you can. If something happens that is uncharacteristic for you... like me not hearing my children that morning. Let yourself off the hook and find the win.
You’ve got this.
- Whitney Craft Jones
