You are not going to be a perfect mum

There. I said it. You are not going to be a perfect mum. You are not going to do everything right. Nor should you want to be perfect in all areas.

One of the pieces of advice I got when I was nesting in preparation for our little girl was this. One of my mums said this to me and I kinda felt hurt by it. I mean, this is me trying to read all the books I could find on parenting, researching all the milestones I should watch out for, and trying to plan everything out to the T. And for me that was important because a lot of things went wrong in my upbringing. So I thought with my kids, I have to do everything right. Now, imagine hearing that statement after all my efforts and plans to parent my kids perfectly. Well, I ignored the comments. Cos, haters’ gonna hate hate hate.

However, less than three years in the business, and I get it. I am not going to be perfect in all aspects of parenting. And that’s okay. Sometimes, my kid will fall in my hand. She will sometimes eat junk food, even though I have curated healthy meals for our lifestyle. I am going to yell at her sometimes, even though I had sworn that I would never do that. Sometimes, she is going to do something that annoys me and she will get away with it. And I think that’s okay. Yeah, I do.

Because, I think perfection is the enemy. I think if we know from the get go that we will never do it perfectly, it helps us prioritise the important and do an excellent job at it. You probably will not control your kids’ lives because you know that you cannot protect them. God already has that job. You will focus more on nurturing them, loving them, and providing them a safe space to thrive and be all that they were already designed to be.

If you stop being fixated on being perfect, you can then focus on doing a good job of raising kids who are confident, resilient, loved and who can from your home make the world a better place. You will also be free to model to your kids examples of a genuine way of living, loving, failing, succeeding, connection, faith and all the things that should really matter.

There is something we do in my house now. When we notice something about our little girl (either it’s something she said, do or even just anything really), we ask one another if it aligns with the family values, damaging to her experiences as a child or could be a problem in the future, and if it could put her life (and ours) at risk. If not, it’s fine. Now, someone may come to our home and think that’s silly for her to do or just not acceptable. But we don’t care. That’s our kid and we are doing the best we can.

All you can do is your best. You are never going to be a perfect parent, especially in the eyes of people who are already scrutinising you.