Mommy Report Card
I’m going to let you in on a really powerful secret today. There is NO SUCH THING as a Mommy Report Card! You probably don’t even realize that you think that there is such a thing but at the same time that i’ll bring your awareness to believing there is, I want to debunk that falsehood and have you purposefully decide that there isn’t. Was that confusing? Let me slow down and explain…
What do you make it mean if your kid is throwing a tantrum in the store? Or that he wears the same outfit to school every other day? Or that they just want to eat Ramen noodles for every meal every day? Or that the girls are fighting? Or that you lost your cool yesterday and started yelling at everybody like a crazy lady? What do any of those circumstances mean about you as a mom? Do they even mean anything about you as a mom? I propose that they might but not nearly as much as we make them mean. The way your kid behaves is not a reflection on how good of a mother you are. Let me say that again
The way your kid behaves is not a reflection on how good of a mother you are!
On a scale of one to ten, how much to you believe that sentence? If you don’t believe it, then you have in your mind what i call a mommy report card. Some of us even use our kid’s actual report card as part of our mommy report card. Do you make his grades mean something about you as his parent? If he is struggling in some area, does that mean that you are a bad mom? I definitely still do this even though I’ve been trying to believe this new thought for a while. But I was emptying out my son’s folder the other day and looking at his school work and blaming myself for how “behind” he probably is. And yes, of course, i have influence and maybe even am to “blame” but what good does beating myself up about it do exactly? Sure doesn’t make me want to do more homework with him.
If we can separate our worth as a parent- whether we’re a “good mom” or not from their behavior then we can focus our emotions and our attention on the only thing we do have control over- ourselves. So, if I want to continue to try to read with my son every night, I do that. He decides how cooperative, attentive, or crazy he wants to act during that time and I decide how much i want to try to force him to sit and read with me, or read to him while he’s running around the room, or give up and face the consequences.
If I don’t like that he wears the same clothes every other day to school, i can be embarrassed about that and make it mean that I’m a bad mom or I can remind myself that i’ve bought him all sorts of new pants but it’s his choice to not like them and not wear them. And i can keep trying to buy different sizes or styles or colors or I can just let him be him and drop the part that it means I’m a bad mom. And do laundry a little more frequently so that his favorite outfits are at least clean cause that is in my control.
As we’ve been discussing this week. our kid’s agency is out of our control. So why do we tie it to our worth. They are very different things. And if we can drop the correlation, we can drop the mom guilt.
