Have you ever been having a good day only to have your world sucked up inside of a cyclone of shame inside your own mind?
Have you ever had this happen because you are SURE that you are the most inept, unqualified person in the world to do whatever thing you’re supposed to be doing well, but have just failed at miserably?
Maybe you have. Maybe you haven’t. Maybe you possess that rare level of resilience that doesn’t tie up your worth in what you do, what you produce, or how you perform. Maybe it’s not so rare, maybe it only feels to me like it’s rare because I don’t know how to think that way.
I don’t know what your thing is. I don’t know in what sphere of life you are sticking your neck out, only to fail again and again. For me it’s been one thing consistently that has shown me over the past 9 years, my woeful insufficiency.
Parenting.
I’m telling you what, I was a really awesome parent until I actually gave birth to some children. It’s been a long, sometimes (actually alarmingly often) painful process of discovering that I don’t get to command my own universe.
One parenting book after another has failed to fix the crazy. It’s not for lack of trying. You could come over to my house and see many of my book shelves full of parenting books that are very well written, holding the best of wisdom and intentions to swoop in and save the day.
There have been times I’ve read a book and thought “Man! I wish I had read this 9 years ago!” But then I realize I probably would have rejected this nonsense when I was 25, because I knew EVERYTHING, and these sweet little darlings will just probably outgrow all of this bad stuff if we just give them the benefit of the doubt, and a good dose of love in the form of permissiveness (misapplied as a misunderstanding of grace).
But as the years marched on, I’ve realized that parenting is extraordinarily hard work. I don’t think that I approached it with the correct level of GRIT from the get-go. Scratch that. I know I didn’t. And in the past few years it's often felt like we are trying to play catch up.
This is the point at which I start beating myself up. It’s like a UFC fight inside my head sometimes. Conflicting ideas spar and jab at each other, throwing around blame and condemnation;
“You should have never spanked him!”
“If only you had spanked him more consistently!”
“You should have started earlier with the chores!”
“You need to back off because you’re nagging with all the chores and feeding the anger in his heart!”
"You should have limited TV time”
“Using TV to get a break from the kids is no excuse. Do better. Find another way”
“Those people probably think you’re the laziest parent in the world. A diligent parent would never have kids that act that way”
“How is that family going to ever believe you aren’t a bunch of hypocrites when your family fights and argues all the time? Jesus? You guys love Him? Please.”
“If you could have figured out how to quit battling depression and anxiety so you could be a kind, calm, consistent mom every day all the time, then the kids would model your kind, calm, consistent behavior instead of your tendency to quickly fly off the handle and yell”
Do you ever have a tape that plays like this in your head?
If so, I am inviting you to say with me: STOP IT!!!!!!
We are not enough. We cannot give enough structure, enough discipline, enough love, enough time, enough good examples, to ever raise perfect children.
Why, oh why have we created these unrealistic perfectionistic expectations and held ourselves and others to them?
God has never asked us to do this. He has asked us to Love Him with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Our kids ARE OUR NEIGHBORS. When that registers in my mind, it completely transforms how I relate to them. Instead of grabbing for more control, I remember that they are little people who make their own choices and have their own lives. I do not get to commandeer every detail of their existence to make myself look & feel like I am a top-notch parent.
On another note, I need a full divorce from the desire for other people to approve of how I’m parenting. Why do I care? They don’t get a say. Even the guy at the breakfast table at our hotel last week who gave his wife some ideas about how I should punish one of our kids who back-talked about not wanting to eat any more breakfast. Even the fact that I harbor a memory about that guy shows that I care to much about his opinion. I’ll listen to the people who know us well, love us well, and care more about hearts than behaviors.
If I could choose two ways to transform how I parent, it would be to permanently kick perfectionism out of my life, and to quit caring what other people think for as long as I live.
I absolutely cannot do those things without burying my mind in the truth of God and who He has created me and these kids to be.
I don’t have an answer for you other than to look to God and ask Him. At the very least, I hope you feel less alone if you’ve been sucked into your own cyclone of shame this week. YOU are a good mom. Even if you’ve failed, been inconsistent, lazy, angry, irritable, any of it.
There is so much grace for you. We are in this together and God has not left us alone. Run to Him.
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