We’ve all said—or at least heard—one of these phrases before. Phrases that serve either to ease our guilt or to try to hide the obvious: we’re not perfect moms.
It made me laugh and think when I heard my camping neighbor say that she usually NEVER forgets the Tylenol in her diaper bag—right after she’d asked me if I had any to help soothe her son. Same thing when she told me she let him keep his pacifier JUST because she wanted to give him a little comfort, even though I’d clearly seen him arrive at the campground with the pacifier in his mouth.
I don’t mind that your son is 3 years old and still needs a pacifier to feel comfortable in a place he doesn’t know, or even to stay calm at home. Far be it from me to judge you. My son is almost three and a half years old and stubbornly refuses to use the bathroom. Sometimes I go to his soccer practice and am the only mom who forgot his water bottle. I’ll admit it—I’m not the perfect mom.
Does the perfect mom even exist? The mom who does everything around the house and is still always there for her kids at any time of day. The mom who’s always well-groomed, who manages to get her oldest dressed and brush her second child’s teeth without making her youngest wait when he wants to eat. Maybe she really does exist—I certainly wouldn’t want to disparage her if she ever reads this—so I’ll just stick to what I believe: most moms aren’t perfect, but they all do the best they can.
Given that perfection is practically unattainable, can we just let it go? Can we, as moms, stop pretending to be something we’re not? Come on, let’s start a revolution of moms who accept themselves and who’ve realized that being a mom means having so many things on your mind that you sometimes forget to bring the essentials. Let’s allow ourselves to choose how we want to raise our children, which battles we’re determined to fight, and which ones we choose to put off until tomorrow. Let’s choose to spend more time with our children one day and more time on ourselves the next. Let’s accept that we’re simply the best moms we can be for our children.
Valérie Louise Pesant