Mother's Day today. A day for Mom. A day set aside to honor, celebrate and remember your mom. What do children who are estranged from their moms do? What is our role today? If no cards match the situation, when all contact is severed, then what? What can a child then do on this day?
Four Mother's Days have come and gone, four years gone by, here we are again. Nothing has changed, nothing for me to do, nothing for me to send, no where to send it to. It is not in anger that I sit, it is in knowing that as a child who left her mom, there really isn't nothing left to do. It would be like couples celebrating their Anniversary long after their divorce. The date no longer carries meaning. It is like the empty relationship, empty.
That one is empty, but I have another Mother's Day to take part in, for I am a Mom. I sit on the other side of Mother's Day too. This side is much harder then the child side. This side is where you are the one to be the mom. Being the Mom is not an easy job, it requires so much that we are not taught to do.
Self-taught Mom.....but we practice on real kids, real babies, real lives. And we don't have a lot of dry runs, or trial periods, nope, we are immediately on the job.
Sure we get re-takes, but only after injury, only after already hurting them and ourselves. We learn and we try and we experiement in hopes that we can get it right.
Getting it right, now what does that mean? How does a mother succeed. Is it measured by how her child turns out, or by how she feels? What is the measure of a Mom?
In my world, the measure is indeed how the child turns out, and if the relationship continues. For can you be a mom without having a relationship with your child?
It seems to me this job has no end date, no stopping and getting off place, no when it gets to rough ditch the effort, but instead this is a life long endeavor. It is a dance that lasts a lifetime. A dance between two souls.
One soul carries the other into this world and is responsible unti they reach an age of being able to take care of themselves. We are here to assist, we do not own their lives. We are here as training wheels, as counselors when asked.
Allowing the other the freedom to express themselves and to grow and eventually leave the nest.
Besides the relationship with yourself, this to me is a very challenging one! We are literally in charge of little souls and we are there to protect and serve them until they can do it on their own.
Protect? Boy that is a hard one. Sometimes in trying to protect we hurt.
Serving their needs too is a tricky spot for their needs and what we feel they need are sometimes worlds apart!
Mom. Such a simple little word, a word that carries the wellness of a child. Imagine that? Is that possible? It seems to me it is.
My children's emotional and spiritual wellness does depend on me, we are the ones responsible for that. Now we surely should have been told this before jumping and taking on 4 souls!
We do this job together, they teach me and I teach them, they reach out and I pull them back, I go overboard and they yank me back, little by little we both grow into our roles.
So for anyone who is still in this dance, who isn't sitting on the sidelines, but in the middle of the dance, learning new steps each day, turning with each new beat, today is the day we Celebrate you.
Let's Celebrate those Moms who are still dancing, in shoes that are too tight, in spots that seem too small or way too big, in areas we never thought we would go, in the joyful steps and ones filled with sorrow! I celebrate those moms who are willing to jump into hellholes and ones who can jump for joy!
Happy Mother's Day to all the imperfect women dancing this dance! Perfection is not required.
Perfection can actually ruin many a great mom, for all we need is one who can admit they were wrong, that perhaps their beliefs were not in reality, that their actions did hurt, that we hurt and they didn't see. An imperfect mom sees where she didn't see before, hear where she didn't hear before, and act where she didn't act before.....Imperfection is required.
Happy Mother's Day to all Imperfect Moms! Is it possible that imperfect moms create perfect children? Children who will then learn that to be perfect is to be imperfect. That they are not only allowed to be themselves, but it is a requirement!
What a wonderful gift you can give your child if you show them your imperfections. And let me tell you for me, those come easy.....my life abounds with imperfections.
We all have imperfections, even if some pretend to pretend they are not there. Imperfections are ways we have learned a better way, are places where we failed and have not given up. Imperfections are life's lessons lived out in real time.
Hats off to all the Ladies who are being an Imperfect Mom......you open the door to allow your kids to enter into a space called Self!
