You Are the Perfect Mom … and other things I wish I’d known

If I could raise my children all over again I’d … have a list a mile long in a heartbeat of time.

Motherhood is fraught with questions, regrets, failures, joys, successes and one of the questions we will plague ourselves with forever is “Am I – or Was I – a good mom?”

I am a mother of two young men now – ages 22 and 24. Both are in college and I recently asked these two sons to send me their reflections of me as a mom. This can be a little nerve wracking so I don’t necessarily recommend it but the responses I got were very interesting. Not what I expected.

I expected to hear about the great family vacations or the lack of great family vacations. I expected to hear about good and bad decisions – like how long it took them to get their own cell phones.

That isn’t what they said.

They said one of the best things I ever did for them was that I let them get dirty. I let them go out and be gone and in the process let them explore, search, fight, get hurt, learn, and dream.

They said they thought the chart with jobs and such was a good idea because it taught them responsibility. This is hilarious to me because I don’t actually remember using a job chart – but hey, if they are going to credit me with teaching them responsibility I’ll take it!

They said they appreciate that they know how to do their own laundry, clean their own bathroom (not that they do it now, but they do know how), and pick up after themselves (appreciating this more now that they share tight living spaces with others).

They said that they appreciate that we didn’t just give them everything because they have learned the value of work and money and caring for things.

They said I was the primary influence in who they are today. This brings joy and sadness all at the same time. Joy because for the most part I really like who my sons are. So I must have done some things really right. It brings sadness because I see gaps in their character that I wish I could go back and pour my influence into.

As I look back on almost 25 years of being a mom there are things I wish someone had purposefully said to me; things I wish I had known that I believe would have made a huge difference in who my boys are today because they would have changed my influence. Maybe someone did and I ignored it. If so, then I am sorry.

I wish someone had told me that I wasn’t raising children but that I was raising future husbands and future fathers.

On some level we all know this, but we get caught up in the moment of now with our children and in the middle of a tantrum or a teen argument we forget that we are raising future husbands and wives, future mothers and fathers. We are raising the next generation of decision makers.

Enjoy your babies. Enjoy your toddlers – there is such fun and excitement in these ages. Enjoy your teens even as they push the boundaries. Treasure these times. But never lose sight that you are not parenting for today. You are parenting for the future. This is hard to believe today – but you will know your children longer as adults than as actual children. They will (hopefully) live out of your house longer than they live in it. The influence you pour into your children will affect your future son-in-law or daughter-in law and your future grand children. As evidenced by what my boys shared with me, our children will remember those things that shape them as adults.

I wish someone had told me that I was the perfect mom for my children.

Did you catch what I did not say? I did not say I needed to hear that I was a perfect mom. Good heavens, no one needs that stress. But I did need to hear that I am the perfect mom for my children. Knowing this and being encouraged to actually believe this would have banished so many insecurities.

You are the perfect mom for your children.

Your children are a gift from God – whether they have been born naturally or are adopted. God chose you to be their mom. Because God chose you, He has already deemed you perfect for the job. Do I know that there are days you want to argue that point? Days when you feel mean and ugly and ready to pick a fight with anyone? Days when you feel like anything but perfect – for anything?

Yes. I know that.

I also know how important it is that we base our being the perfect choice in God and that we trust His judgment because God knows exactly what He is doing. He has been in the business of hand-picking less than perfect people to be the perfect choice for specific tasks for thousands of years.

He picked Abram and Sarai to be the parents of Isaac through whom the Israelites would become a nation – the chosen ones of God – even though they were liars and tried to manipulate Him.

He picked Moses, a fugitive and complainer, to be the deliverer of the Israelites from Egypt.

He hand-picked David, the youngest, the least, the uninvited to the party and overlooked shepherd boy to be the next King of Israel.

God picked the prostitute Rahab to be the one who saved the Israelite spies.

God picked crazy Mary Magdelene to be the one who met the Risen Christ first.

Jesus picked the murderous Saul to be the apostle to the Gentiles.

These are just a few examples! If God can hand-pick the likes of these, with all of their faults, insecurities, issues, and failures and still deem them perfect for their given task then we can fully trust, even if we don’t understand, that God has deemed us to be the perfect mom for our children even with all of our faults.

Gosh I wish I’d known that and learned to live into being the confident mom I was created to be instead of the mom full of insecurities and guilt and doubt.

I am part of a ladies Bible study and we are working our way through the book of Nehemiah. The events in Nehemiah take place after Israel was conquered by Babylon, Jerusalem wass all but destroyed, and the people were exiled from Jerusalem. Nehemiah has been hand-picked by God to lead the remnant of Israelites who have returned to Jerusalem 70 years later in rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem.

Nehemiah encountered much opposition. Some was obvious, outright and direct. Some was more subtle and subversive. The last attempt to stop the work came in the form of compromise – asking Nehemiah to come meet with those who were opposing him – to find some kind of middle ground – Let’s work together on this. Four times the enemy sent Nehemiah a message asking him to come and meet with them and four times Nehemiah responded with “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down.” (Neh 6:3a)

I wish someone told me “You are doing a good work – don’t come down.”

As moms we will face all kinds of opportunities to compromise. Some are definitely warranted – I’m all for the pick your battles philosophy.

BUT – what we learn here is that we need to know when to compromise and what battles are worth fighting. We need to learn how to say no to activities (ours and our children’s) that will compromise our convictions for our families. This will be individual to your family. Even though my husband and I did not have this scriptural foundation to base our decision on, we somehow understood that serious travel ball for either one of our sons was a compromise we were not willing to make. That would have caused us to come down from the good work of having family dinners, engaging fully in Scouts, being able to spend time at the pool in the summer, and other things that were important to us.

For this one good decision, we made plenty of compromises that did cause us to come down from our good work. Be encouraged that you are doing a good work as a mom. Filter every choice through that assurance and ask: Will this make me come down from that good work?

I wish someone had told me how important it would be to have community.

When my children were toddlers I had a group of friends that I met with regularly and I had a good support community. When we moved to our current home I lost that community and, not understanding the importance of it, didn’t seek it out in our new area. I was working full time and with my husband’s travel, I felt like I just didn’t have time for it.

Big Mistake.

One of my sons recalled this “One time I remember we were in the delivery stage of scout popcorn and you had asked us to organize what needed to be delivered and to where. You wanted us to make headway before you got home from work. Basically you got home, you were stressed, you realized no progress had been made and you broke down. Dad was gone. There was no support.

My reaction was to way over-react. My son said: “We were both shocked. That wasn’t Mom. “

That this is a memory one of my boys has breaks my heart. I remember this. I remember all of my failures that came from being overwhelmed, frustrated and stressed. My other son – the one who was on the receiving end of my over-reaction doesn’t remember it at all. Go figure and praise the Lord!

Hebrews 10:24- 25 tells us to “… consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another.”

The early Christians knew life that was stressful and overwhelming. They were generally being hunted down and killed! The writer of Hebrews was telling the early Christians that they needed each other to get through those times. We need each other. Motherhood is isolating if we let it be. We may spend a lot of time with other moms during kid-centered activities, but we aren’t necessarily really connecting. Most of the time I never knew the names of the other moms and I am sure they didn’t know mine either.

We need each other to encourage us, to breathe grace into our lives when we feel like we have really messed up. I know that if I’d been connected into a group of women where I could share my frustrations and get encouragement – that grace breath reminding me that even though I over-reacted I am still hand-picked by God, I am still doing a good work – I probably would not have over-reacted with quite as much wreckage.

Remember that I asked my boys for their reflections on me as a mom?

Unbeknownst to the other, they both responded with this most interesting thank you:

Thank you for making me eat whatever was served for dinner – specifically for making me sit there for 2 hours until I ate the peppers and onions I had picked out of my fajitas. (he he…. This child now loves fully loaded fajitas)

Thank you for not letting me be picky – no exceptions. By far the best thing you did for me.

Our kids are going to remember and appreciate the oddest things and this should be encouraging. They aren’t going to remember every epic fail. They aren’t going to remember every epic success. The things that you think – wow this is really great – they’ll be like – Really? We went the Grand Canyon?

What they are going to remember is what molded them, what makes them who they are as adults.

You have been hand-picked by God to be the one who has the most influence in their lives. You are doing a great work; do not come down. Encourage one another. Spur each other on toward being the perfect mom for your children that God has already said you are.

Love and blessings,

Denise

#livingholy