Mom's... Don't Try To Be Perfect

It is a tale as old as time. You find out you are going to be a Mom. You think of all the things you will never do. I will never let my kid sleep in my bed, never raise my voice, never settle for anything less than perfection. I will always make nutritious and wholesome meals, we will not eat out, we will not have sugar, I will participate in every single activity that my kid is to be involved in. We will do piano lessons, I will always make the best items at the bake sale. The list goes on and on and on. Guess what? We are NOT Perfect!!!

Who came up with the idea of perfection anyways? I wish I knew, but here is what I do know. Perfection is made up of imperfection. Stay with me here. We as moms put way too much pressure on ourselves to be this perfect image of what we think mom of the year should be. I asked my kiddo what makes the perfect mom, here is what he told me:

The perfect mom is a flower.

Think for a moment about that sentence. Have you ever seen a perfect flower? Simply no, even the most beautiful flower will have a fault somewhere. The beauty is it as a whole, imperfections and all. Sometimes there are brown spots, a petal with a small tear, a wilted leaf, the flower droops from too much sun or a hard rain storm.

That is a perfect example of a mother. We may not get everything perfect. We may sneak and buy the bakery cupcakes and pass them off at the bake sale. We may let the kiddos have a little too much sugar one day or are too tired to cook so we order a pizza. Stop and look at it from the outside. Laughing with your kiddos over a cupcake that you definitely did not make and laugh at the icing on your nose is a million times better than spending hours doing everything and missing out.

So Moms out in the world, listen up! Quit worrying about being the perfect mom in every single aspect and be a MOM. Be there! Enjoy the imperfections of unexpected pizza night. Enjoy the nights when they beg to sleep in your bed and you get a foot in the face all night. At some point they grow up. They get families of their own and they are going to be doing that with their children. Soak in every moment of it, because just like a flower, the time does not last forever. Take advantage of every moment you have. The dishes can wait an hour and the burnt meatloaf is not the end of the world. Be the perfect mom-- which is far from what we consider perfect.

*Jennifer McGinnis is a wife and mother of one boy.

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