None of Us Are Perfect Parents But That’s Okay

This post on parenting is in collaboration with a group of my blogger friends. I’ll be linking the other posts at the bottom of this one so you can check them out. If you are interested in reading the entire summer collaboration series, make sure to follow Arin and Navy. Thank you Arin and Navy for the opportunity to be part of this series.

The prompt for this week’s post is to speak about our strengths and weaknesses as a parent. I am sure when I agreed to the prompt that I had some inspiring pieces of wisdom I was hoping to share with you. Sitting at my computer crying had me wondering why I had signed up for such a daunting task.

I spent the entire day thinking about what I could say my strengths were as a parent. But all that kept popping into my mind was the gut-wrenching guilt of feeling like I’m the worst parent. Coming up with a list of weakness was rather easy. My list might as well read weaknesses 100, strengths 0.

Overwhelmed and crying, I tried to understand why I was feeling like such a failure as a parent today when I felt secure enough to volunteer to write a post about my strengths a month earlier.

Looking back, when I signed up things were smooth sailing. School was out for the summer and I was ready to compete for “mom of the year”. Between swim lessons, tons of coloring pages, crafts, and family trips I thought I was a shoo-in for the award.

Of course, life happened as it does. Doctors visits, preschool checklists, and a myriad of other things brought me crashing back down to reality. On top of not having a #momlifeisthebest life summer, I received some rather upsetting but not totally surprising news about my youngest. I was feeling guilty and looking for somewhere to place the blame.

Unfortunately, my strong-willed child took the brunt of it. After all, his demanding personality was a distraction, wasn’t it? Keeping him out of trouble kept me from giving my youngest the attention he needed. Blame turned to resentment, resentment turned to mom guilt x 1,000. Hence the feeling of being the worst mom ever.

I’m not telling you this long yet vague story to make myself feel better. I’m not looking to rationalize my behavior. I am admitting to my parenting mistakes so that you know that you are not alone in making yours.

We all set out to be patient, loving, kind, and perfect parents. Who wouldn’t want to be the perfect parent? But making perfection the goal is setting ourselves up for failure.

Kids misbehave, and parents lose their cool. It’s going to happen but it is okay. Our kids don’t need perfect parents. They need parents that try hard day after day, even when they feel like the worst parent ever.

My strength is not perfection. My strengths are my love and my desire to be the best parent I can be.

If you missed my first post in the series about working from home you can read it here.