Indelible Impressions of Law and Order

While I do mundane tasks in our bedroom, I entertain myself with reruns of Law and Order.  While consumed by consignment sale preparation last night, I was struck by a case involving a mother with severe PPD who tried to take her children 'to heaven by the hard road'.  Now, I have never once considered harming my children in this process of overcoming my PPD, but her explanations resounded so deeply with me.  The writers captured it beautifully, even if the acting isn't so fantastic.  She said that everything that wasn't perfect reminded her that she was failing at being the mother she wanted to be.  The chair over turned in the yard, a missed lesson with school, an inability to breastfeed a child, and not feeling totally fulfilled by being consumed by her children.  She loves them, only wants what's best for them and feels that she just isn't living up to that standard.  Seriously, they must have listened to the conversations in my head.

And yet, I must be one of the only women who sees motherhood as challenging.  Or at least I'm one of the few that admit it.  The thing is, just because I think it's challenging doesn't mean I don't see the blessing in being a mom.  In fact, I think part of my frustration and PPD is wanting so much to be a good mother.  I want to mother with intention and intelligence.  With humor and grace.  With joy and laughter.  With education and structure.  With rules and discipline.  With patience and kindness.  With peace and security.  With imagination and creativity.  I simply don't feel like I have all the tools to be the kind of mother I want to be.  I am not incredibly creative-- and artistic is far beyond my reach.  I'm a type A personality so joy and laughter aren't always my first box to check off.  Patience, well, I stopped praying for patience when I was like 13 and realized that I didn't actually WANT to learn how to be patient :)  And some days, the fear of failing as a mother is all consuming.  Am I really that strange as to think about this and be overwhelmed?

I am the single most influential person in my children's lives.  If that doesn't scare the bejeezus out of you, I don't know what will.  To know that I-- with all of my imperfections-- am leaving indelible impressions on my little ones is frightening.  I want so desperately to be a great mother that it works against me sometimes.  I am easily paralyzed by fear.  Failure is my greatest individual fear-- even above sharks, spiders, and alligators.  And to think that I could be failing at the most important job of my life is simply terrifying sometimes.  I've said it in a few different ways, but I wasn't trained to be a mother, I was trained to be a chiropractor.  I wasn't trained to know how to handle defiance from 2 yr old or an infant that doesn't want to sleep.  I was trained to teach people how to create health from the inside out.  Not teach preschoolers how to read.  Somedays it's as if I'm a scientist trying to teach on the intricacies of literature by Eudora Wheatley (whose name I likely mispelled).  I'm clueless.  And cluelessness makes me feel insignificant.  And insignificance makes me defensive.  And defensive makes me snappy and angry.   And snappy and angry doesn't make for the mommy I want to be.  I need this cycle to stop.

I was reading a friend's blog the other day and she captured it well, I think.  She said "I'm a good mother, except when I'm not".  Exactly.  Somehow moms, and I think stay at home moms especially, put this pressure on ourselves to have the brightest, most beautiful, most caring, most cultured, well rounded children out there.  And while I totally believe that being a mom is the most important job life can offer, putting so much undo stress on the position can cloud the principles of mommydom.  Not having a house that's ready for a photo shoot is not failing as a mom OR wife.  Spandex and cotton are indeed perfectly acceptable attire on a daily basis.  A dinner that's thrown together, not planned out a month in advance, doesn't mean I don't care about my children, it simply means life happened that day.  My two year old watched more than an hour of tv today-- doesn't mean I'm failing as a mother, as long as it doesn't happen on a regular basis.  Putting my baby in his bed to scream for a few minutes while I have a glass of wine and calm my nerves doesn't make me a bad mommy, it makes me a mommy who knew I had reached my limit.  And EVERY mommy has limits.  I'm not the only one.  Even if some moms won't admit it.  And even if some moms' limits are 'better' than mine, mine are mine, and I can't compare myself to her. 

John Woodall spoke at church this morning (Watermarke Church) and said something that will stick with me.  He was telling a story about how he handled his son during a particularly hard time.  He had reacted in anger, out of love, toward his son.  Knowing this was an improper way to show his love and not how he wanted to parent his son, he had to apologize and ask for his son's forgiveness.  Keith and I do this on a regular basis in our arguments.  And I'm ashamed to say that I've already had to ask my 2 yr old to forgive Mommy for being mean or bad.  I have to go to him admit that mommy was wrong in her behavior.  And even at 2, I think he understands in some way.  I think he sees and hears the remorse.  And, more than anything, it is humbling and a bit unforgettable apologizing for reacting in anger towards something so small, so sweet, so innocent.  Those moments, too, are indelible.  For both of us.  Am I really the only mom who has ever lashed out at her little one?  Am I really the only mom who loses control of her tongue occasionally?  Am I really the only parent who's been sleep deprived for months and in total frustration of an unwilling but sleepy baby jumped instead of swayed?  Patted a little too hard?  Picked up with more frustration and less understanding?  Really?  I'm the only parent who sometimes lets herself unravel just a bit? 

The lady in Law and Order tried to blow up her family with a pipe bomb in the engine.  I'm thankful that I have been spared that level of deep depression.  I may, in the middle of the night, sick and tired of not being able to sleep more than 3 hours at a time since May of last year-- well, probably before then with all the nighttime pee runs-- want to shake the baby back to sleep, but I haven't.  And I won't.  Because it's too important for me that he sees that even though Mommy hates that he won't sleep very long, that Mommy loves him.  The thing about motherhood for me is that it challenges all the things about me that I'm not naturally good at.  There are lots of things that come easily for me.  And for whatever reason, whether it's expectations I have for me or that I'm actually just not a good mom, mothering isn't exactly as effortless and easy as I feel like it should be.  I somehow think being a great mom should be fluent-- and I feel like it takes every ounce of effort I have some days to be a good mother.  And some days, my efforts are lost in the midst of exhaustion and chicken being thrown across the room.  And some days, my efforts are rewarded by looking back over the day and not regretting a thing about it.  And it is those days I want more and more to have.