I feel like I do this a lot…go off on long rants about my mother and how much I love her and our relationship but she just makes me so happy! My mommy (yes, I still call her Mommy and no, I’m not ashamed!) is such a beautiful human being. Her intentions are always good, no matter the result. She’s very generous and always trying to do right by others.
We had the typical mother/daughter relationship while I was growing up. I felt like she was too critical and I obviously knew everything because you do when you’re a teenager. Still, she gave the world to me. She worked her butt off to make sure that I had all that I needed and always encouraged me to do my best in everything. She taught me how to tie my shoes. She taught me how to dream. The most important thing she ever taught me was how to be the best mom I could be, and I didn’t even realize I was learning a lesson from all of those years just being her daughter.
The thing I most often hear talked about among moms is mommy guilt. Moms so frequently feel guilty for decisions they have or are making. They wonder if they’re doing the right thing for their child. I say ‘they’ because when I feel this way, I dismiss it when I think about my own mother. There were so many times that I know my mom must have felt unsure but she followed through without faltering every time. She stood consistently behind every choice she made and if she experienced guilt, I surely didn’t see it.
As a mother, not every decision you ever make is going to be perfect. I think that’s impossible. If you are thinking of the well-being of your child and you’re trying to do what’s best for them, I think that’s all that matters. When I’m feeling uncertain about a parenting step I’m taking, my mind takes me back childhood.
When I was sixteen, I was going through a really hard time and I hit a point where I was extremely self-destructive. My mom wanted to try and figure out what she was dealing with and what was causing my downward spiral. She read my diary. I was angry and full of what, at the time, felt like hatred. I don’t know what I would have done at that time if it were my own child, I have no idea because it’s not an easy situation and so much of parenting is this way. I know that my reaction probably made my mother feel horrible, she probably experienced mommy guilt. She probably felt like she had made her child hate her. All she wanted to do was help me and she didn’t know what to do, so she did something that seemed like it could lead to some answers. She was doing her best for me.
I don’t make any life decisions lightly and I always consider pros and cons for my children. weighing options and choosing a path to take. Mommy guilt is only fleeting for me and it’s because I love my mom for every decision she ever made for me, knowing that they were all out of love and care. I know that someday, my children will look back and appreciate everything I did for them. I’m going to keep working as hard as I possibly can to do everything right by my babies but I won’t let guilt consume me and instead, I’ll fill that space with love and learning.
My mother is the reason that I’m the mother and person that I am today and I love her so much. I love the quality time we spend together and watching her interact with her grandbabies. I’m proud of my mommy and without her, I wouldn’t be half the woman I am today.
