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No Perfect Mother

By Marsha Maung

July 31st, 2008

“No mother is ever perfect. Just like every other human being on the planet, we aim to do only the best that we can do, and provide the best that we can provide. The rest is best left to life itself”

I know of many mothers who live in regret every day of their lives. They wallow in worry, get consumed by negative thoughts and preconceptions of ill-fate and try their best to block out the possible damaging effects life may have on their kids. In other words, they over-protect their kids from…life, from experiences and from themselves.

I have to admit that I succumbed to the same problem when my kids were little – more specifically, when they were toddlers learning how to walk. Every knock and bruise, I would aim to prevent. But little did I know, not even a mother can protect her own child from every knock and bump that life has to deliver. When we try to do that, we’ll only meet with disappointments.

Then again, I’m not saying that we should just let our kids walk barefoot across broken glass and let them ‘learn and experience the pain’. I wouldn’t actually go as far as to do that but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to let them experience life a little so that they are better prepared for their own future.

Stop trying to be the perfect mother
I don’t know what it is that God put inside our hearts and minds when He created women but there’s a secret ingredient in each and every one of our hearts that makes us want to protect everyone around us. The moment we fail, we feel this huge boulder of guilt swinging at us and we’re left crushed and heartbroken…that we’ve not done our jobs well enough.

That’s not true at all.

Mothers are given a set of skills and emotions to help us deal with motherhood but under no circumstance we are expected to be perfect – therefore, making such an unwarranted demand on ourselves will only cause us grief and disappointment.

There’s no such thing as a perfect mother – everyone fails one time or another
Sheila is bad with her temper…sometimes she screams her head off with her kids and sometimes she throws temper tantrums. Belinda on the other hand, is perfectly well-mannered and speaks level-headedly even when she’s totally bouncing with anger. But Belinda’s not a very good cook and prepares some of the worst lunches known to motherhood! In the meantime, Hannah is good with her temper, good in the kitchen but she’s terrible at time management. There are times that she brings her kids to school, tuition or other extracurricular activities so late that the kids would get teased in school…and they feel horrid about it.

So you see, no single mother is ever perfect at everything.

If you continue to see yourself in a negative light just because you’re not up to par in one area of your life as a mother, you’re headed for an extremely stressed out life. And a stressed out mother is not only an incapable mother, but she’s not going to be a lot of fun to be around.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marsha Maung is a Malaysian-based freelance writer with two kids. She spends her time ferrying her kids around, watering her plants, writing web content, SEO stuff, ghostwriting books and also indulges in the occasional Facebook-ing. Visit MarshaMaung.com for more information.