Mother's Day

Why did it take me until my very last child to relax and enjoy Mother's Day?  What wonderful times I've been missing with my paranoid, insecure convictions that I was the worst mother on earth and that my children may have been better off with wolves.  Or bears.  I hear they make good mothers.  I used to go to church and listen to all the talks about marvellous moms barely controlling tears of despair.  One Mother's Day not so very long ago I actually went to bed right after church and didn't get up until the next day.   It was the coward's way out, I know, but at the time it seemed like the only solution. Only in sleep did the critical voices in my head shut their mouths.  

Now in the waning years of motherhood, with my youngest child having just turned seven and my oldest two up and out, I realize that not only was I way too hard on myself, but the reality is that my kids remember the best and the worst of times--and they love me anyway.   It's quite liberating.   I do my best.  I mess up.  They love me anyway.   That goes both ways.  They do their best.  They mess up.  I love them anyway.   It's all good!  And one other thing -- it's funny that the people who worry about doing the right thing generally AREN'T  the ones who have the big problems.  I don't think those moms you read about in the paper who lock their children in basements and feed them only dry dog food or who leave their children behind while they pursue drugs and rock and roll ever worried about whether or not they were a good mother.   So if you are one of those worriers, just stop it!  You're doing fine.   And all you young Moms out there, take my advice--Enjoy the messy breakfast in bed, first grade hand plaques, flowers picked out of your garden, sticky hugs.  Enjoy the tributes to motherhood, because you're earning your own tribute right now one crisis at a time.   Enjoy the cards and the compliments. You're the MOM!  What a great thing to be!