Mother's Day, Motherhood
I meant to write a post about Mother's Day, so writing about some of my thoughts on motherhood, while not what I was planning, is at least apropos.
To be honest, I wasn't originally going to write on Livejournal at all. I was hoping to do some relaxing creative story writing, but I had to open Gmail to get to Google Drive, which led to seeing notifications in Gmail, which led to photo albums of Celeste's Girl Scout Camporee on Google+, which made me think about the children. I re-entered the Gmail window and tried to get back on track, but I remembered that I'd opened a task window, and that reminded me that I should write down some tasks.
Earlier, I stripped off my pants and was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I looked down and saw that the bare fronts of my lower legs had an angry red rash. They've had an ongoing rash for months, but today it's red. So I wrote down the task, "Make a doctor's appointment." That got me thinking about how we need to make dentist appointments for the children, at which point I began to feel my stress level rise. After last year's dentist debacle, where I carefully chose a dentist who turned out to be AWFUL for reasons I won't go into detail about, I asked Gene if he could be responsible for picking a new dentist and setting up appointments for the children. Even thinking about it is making me start to feel hot in the chest.
The more I let it simmer, the more it bubbles up and becomes bigger than just an overdue dentist appointment. It becomes about AM I A BAD MOTHER? As a mother, there's this ever-present fear that permeates my entire existence, that makes me doubt myself, that makes me wonder if my mothering is good enough. No, not good enough. THE BEST. Because if I'm not the best, then I COULD be giving my children a better life. I could be a better mother. And yet I just can't manage to do every single thing. Usually I push these feelings aside and tell to myself, "You're doing the best you can." But am I? I think maybe I could do better. Which leads back to the question of whether I'm a bad mother. Or not bad, but mediocre. I could read more parenting books, I could be more organized. And it's not that I look at those specific options and choose not to do them -- it's that I make other choices about how to use my time (like this one, writing on Livejournal) and they eliminate the need to make those choices, because I no longer have time for them.
I'm probably not a bad mother. I think I'm pretty patient. I try to be fair. I try to protect my children while allowing them to explore and grow and learn. I try to teach them to be kind and honest and compassionate, to teach them about manners and about how to be friendly. I've worked hard to avoid making the same mistakes my parents made, although I'm sure that I'm making new ones. These are all things I think about on a daily basis, but there's just so much to consider that it's overwhelming.
End stream of consciousness rant!
To be honest, I wasn't originally going to write on Livejournal at all. I was hoping to do some relaxing creative story writing, but I had to open Gmail to get to Google Drive, which led to seeing notifications in Gmail, which led to photo albums of Celeste's Girl Scout Camporee on Google+, which made me think about the children. I re-entered the Gmail window and tried to get back on track, but I remembered that I'd opened a task window, and that reminded me that I should write down some tasks.
Earlier, I stripped off my pants and was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I looked down and saw that the bare fronts of my lower legs had an angry red rash. They've had an ongoing rash for months, but today it's red. So I wrote down the task, "Make a doctor's appointment." That got me thinking about how we need to make dentist appointments for the children, at which point I began to feel my stress level rise. After last year's dentist debacle, where I carefully chose a dentist who turned out to be AWFUL for reasons I won't go into detail about, I asked Gene if he could be responsible for picking a new dentist and setting up appointments for the children. Even thinking about it is making me start to feel hot in the chest.
The more I let it simmer, the more it bubbles up and becomes bigger than just an overdue dentist appointment. It becomes about AM I A BAD MOTHER? As a mother, there's this ever-present fear that permeates my entire existence, that makes me doubt myself, that makes me wonder if my mothering is good enough. No, not good enough. THE BEST. Because if I'm not the best, then I COULD be giving my children a better life. I could be a better mother. And yet I just can't manage to do every single thing. Usually I push these feelings aside and tell to myself, "You're doing the best you can." But am I? I think maybe I could do better. Which leads back to the question of whether I'm a bad mother. Or not bad, but mediocre. I could read more parenting books, I could be more organized. And it's not that I look at those specific options and choose not to do them -- it's that I make other choices about how to use my time (like this one, writing on Livejournal) and they eliminate the need to make those choices, because I no longer have time for them.
I'm probably not a bad mother. I think I'm pretty patient. I try to be fair. I try to protect my children while allowing them to explore and grow and learn. I try to teach them to be kind and honest and compassionate, to teach them about manners and about how to be friendly. I've worked hard to avoid making the same mistakes my parents made, although I'm sure that I'm making new ones. These are all things I think about on a daily basis, but there's just so much to consider that it's overwhelming.
End stream of consciousness rant!