I decided this year for Lent I was going to give up feeling guilty about every mothering mistake and misstep and just enjoy my kids a little more. It turned out harder to do than giving up chocolate or alcohol! Being a mom to one kid was hard, but I still managed to keep up on the rest of life. Being a mom to two kids was harder, but I still found time for most things. Being a mom to three kids, well it is either be a mom OR do everything else. I can't even come close to both.
My mother always says to me, "just enjoy those kids and don't worry about the rest, you have the rest of your life to clean your house." Funny thing about advice like that is you feel like it is totally a bunch of crap until you are old enough to know better. I feed the same types of lines to my kids and they look at me like I am on crack. So I started thinking about how I feel like my mom doesn't know what she is talking about and then the Star Tribune newspaper asked the question "when did you realize your mom was right?" As I thought about all of this, all the advice she has given me over the years, here is what I ended up with in the end:
When did I realize my Mom was right? I think I always suspected my Mom was right from the time I was two years old. In my two year old eyes, she was the most beautiful, intelligent, loving, perfect person I knew. At that time, I was convinced that everything she told me was 100% correct. As I got older and learned that some of the things she told me were not entirely right; (really? There isn’t a bunny who delivers candy during the night?) I began to question how often what she was wrong.
In my teen years, I decided I didn’t want to believe my Mom. It seemed annoying to think that she knew more than me. What she told me seemed so far away from what I wanted to be true that I decided she just had to be wrong. We would argue on a regular basis while I tried to convince her that I knew better than she did. It seemed our arguments would only end when she declared the way things were going to be. My retort would be to state the unfairness of it all. To be sure she got the last word; my mother would reply “life isn’t fair.” And that was it, so I would fume teenage style, storm off, slam a door, and pout until I got either bored or hungry.
After spending some time on my own, I once again began to suspect my Mom might be right more often than she was wrong. I would never admit it to her; but it seems that my Mom knew an awful lot of useful things for surviving in the world. I would call her on a regular basis with my questions. She always had an answer and her answer always lead me in the right direction. Her wisdom may have helped me make it on my own, but I still wasn’t prepared to admit officially she might be right about anything.
My magic moment came where I became the ever beautiful, intelligent, loving, perfect person to a little someone. My heart was no longer inside my chest, but outside myself. I no longer saw the world as revolving around me. I could see the pain of my friends who couldn’t have children but really wanted to. I saw Mothers who lost their children way too early. I saw bullies pick on my child for no other reason than because they could. I saw the homes of decent, hardworking people destroyed by fire or flood. I saw hearts broken. I saw innocence stolen way too early. I would see these things and find myself saying “life just isn’t fair.” I would catch myself uttering those words and hear my Mom’s voice.
Life really could be very unfair. In in a moment of uttering her words to my own little one during one of his accusations of unfairness, I really understood what my Mom was actually saying all of those times. As I uttered the words, I stopped myself from saying the “but” that always seemed to be on my tongue but never made it out of my mouth. Then I realized, my Mom had never said the “but” either and yet all this time she must have been thinking it. It turns out what I really intend to say to my little one is “life isn’t fair, but I have you.” It doesn’t matter how unfair life turns out to be as long as I have you, my little one. You, my little one, make the journey all worth it. And in that moment I realized, all this time my Mom really has been right and it had nothing to do with stories of bunnies or opinions that differ, but the love she felt for me despite the unfairness of everything else.
So Happy Mother's Day to my mom and all the moms that have touched my life. I really have learned so much for all of you.
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