What If You Could Be The Perfect Mother?

Hey Mom, grab a cup of coffee. Let’s chat…

By the way, if you like your coffee robust and ‘extra’ I discovered a trick. By adding  special dark cocoa powder in your bold roast with a dash of milk it tastes sweet. Yum and healthy!

Anyway, back to our chat.

With all the stresses of parenting, do you ever wonder what it would be like if we lived in a ‘perfect’ world?

Mother’s Day had me thinking ‘what if’ this year. I had bought a coffee mug with the words ‘what if?’ on it for a writing prompt. And it began a thought process I continued dwelling on as I walked by a playground full of school children.

What if I was the perfect mother?

I mean wouldn’t that be wonderful for our now grown daughters and my husband?

No more beating myself up for my parenting mistakes. Then our kids would know they are loved and life would be sweet. Right?

Then I thought, where does that leave room for God?

No more quiet times calling out to the one who loves us unconditionally. No more crying to him over our problems, mistakes, sorrows. And certainly no more opportunities to share our hearts with my spouse and our children over what troubles me.

I LOVE talking to my adult children about how their father… er, I messed up in the past. Some backstory, my husband and I met on a skiing trip in high school. There is little we don’t know about the other person.

One of my favorite stories that he tells from our strict upbringing is when his elementary school teacher told him ‘no talking back.’ He misunderstood that to mean no sassy talking back. When she meant, ‘no talking.’ My husband is an extravert. He has a hard time not talking. So you can imagine the adventures he had with that particular teacher.

Kids are smart. They certainly know we’re  not perfect. Our daughters were taught to be respectful.

But sometimes they need to hear how we struggled so they don’t feel alone in a competitive environment.

Authenticity is hard in a world of ‘keeping up appearances.’ In the long run it’s easier when we can say, “I need you.”