What Kind of Mom Do You WANT to Be?
The reason we have overwhelming amounts of guilt is because we are taking on everyone’s opinion from every source and person we know about what kind of mom we should be. All of the conditioning from our past, plus every parenting blog, book, and youtube video we come across added to the comments from all our mom friends, and family members is a lot of expectations!
So along with step one of asking “who made up this rule anyway?” comes the most important question “What kind of mom do I WANT to be?” YOU get to choose! You don’t have to be the same kind of mom that yours was or that your husband had. You don’t have to be like your sisters or your neighbors or the strangers at the park. You can let your kids play before they eat at McDonalds. You can put them to bed at whatever time works best for you and them. You can make up the rules cause you are the adult now. You are the Mother Here!
And You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do! What?! Do you feel like your whole life is the opposite of that statement? Have you been exhausted and full of self-pity because you feel like all day everyday is full of doing things you have to do and should do and you don’t ever get to do what you want to do? I definitely can relate. And this thought is what has pulled me out of that trap. When I owned that i don’t do anything i don’t want to do, my whole perspective changed. If I am doing something, it is because I want to. No one can make me do anything. I choose to. I want to. And arguing with that reality leaves me powerless and resentful. So now I remind myself that I do what I want. So if i’m doing it, I want to. Can’t blame anyone else. Taking that responsibility helps me to gladly do what needs to be done but also drop all the extra stuff that i feel like i should do but don’t actually have to do.
So actively deciding what kind of mom you want to be is the first step of managing your own life on your own terms and if you’re living in alignment with that, the guilt is gone. Its awesome!
