Happy Imperfect Mother's Day

There are mothers scattered around the world who woke up today feeling blessed, proud, and secure in both their parenting and their place. In addition to having surely had a certain amount of that thing we call the luck of the draw, they have likely worked hard, on their parenting and on themselves, to be where they are today.

This post is not for them.

Nor is it for the scores of others who don't recognize or celebrate Mother's Day, because it doesn't apply or it doesn't resonate or they think the holiday is frivolous, exclusive, or painful. Many have no connection to the occasion and/or have excellent reasons to opt out.

Instead, today's post is for you. You know who you are. The mom who will get the lump in your throat when you receive your child's school-assigned, handmade Mother's Day gift, and you'll hug your child or children close and mean it, and all the while you'll feel like an imposter or a fraud because on somewhere deep down, you're thinking, I know I'm not cut out for this. I know I'm not doing a good enough job.

I could detour here to writing about societal underpinnings. How we simultaneously say that mothering is all-important and that it is unimportant. How we expect mothers to know how to do this most complex of jobs, since "maternal instinct" clearly comes with an internal blueprint for what to do when your child hates school, or can't sleep, or gets anxious or depressed, or has some strange but mysterious symptom that specialists can't figure out. This is all true and real, but it is not where I'm going with this blog post today.

Instead, I'm speaking directly to you, oh self-doubting and self-critical mom who probably has a whole range of complicated feelings about this day. I'm speaking to you directly, with three important messages about today.

1) If, before you became a mother, you struggled with low self-esteem, with questions about your place and your worth, motherhood can amplify the hell out of that. It's like handing your negative self-talk a megaphone. Your insecurities will hold large, unruly parties without your permission. This might leave you feeling quite terrible at times, in general and on various special occasions, including Mother's Day.

2) Feeling like a bad, insufficient, or unsuccessful mother on Mother's Day does not mean the feeling is a fact. It does not "prove" anything about your parenting.

3) Feeling bad about yourself is one thing. Failing to address it is another matter altogether.      There is no one path to healing from depression or low self-esteem or post-trauma symptoms, but a sustained effort to do so (which may or may not involve counseling, self-help measures, lifestyle changes, soul-searching, and so on) is of vital importance. 

And what if you are, in fact, "failing" at some aspect of parenting in some fundamental way? Maybe you fly off the handle sometimes and say terrible things to your child that truly harm him or her emotionally. Maybe you are physically present but emotionally absent as a parent, and your child feels alone. I'm not making the case that we shouldn't assess our own parenting, regardless of self-esteem, and seriously address any ways in which we could be harming or failing our children.

But I truly believe that when you want to change something, whether it's how you feel about yourself as a parent or how you parent, being harsh toward yourself will only hamper your progress. We do not grow or change optimally in a hostile climate.

So try to celebrate you today. You're not perfect, no, but you care, and you're trying, and that's half the battle. It's a challenging job, but you're probably not as bad at it as you think.

Happy imperfect mother's day to you, and to us all.