Keeping my thoughts under the 400 word count limit is usually a challenge, but this time I felt completely constrained by the requirement.
I wrote about Mommy guilt in my Pantagraph column this month and cut more than half of my initial ramblings on the subject. It's such a challenge to not constantly be weighing my actions on a giant "Good Mommy/Bad Mommy" scale to decide if I'm doing the right thing.
Asher's feather collection has evolved into a feather obsession. Walter walked with him to a nearby neighborhood pond one evening last week. They found several disease and micro-bug infested duck feathers and fluff so of course he wanted to go back.
We are sweltering under stifling heat and humidity in Central Illinois right now but I saw the serious longing in Asher's voice to go get more feathers the next day. I warned him it would be hot and we might not find feathers since he had just been there less than 24 hours earlier, but he was persistent. So we went back to look for more feathers.
It was HOT! I pushed my baby girl in the heat and we kept our eyes looking for anything resembling a feather. We weren't disappointed. Asher added several more feathers to his collection that morning and I labeled myself a GOOD MOM!!
We continued with our day's agenda.
One stop needed to be the yarn store since I heard they were having a great sale. Of course Asher declared his hatred of stores before we even got inside and didn't let up with reminders of how much he doesn't like stores while I quickly scoured the store for a good deal (since I still don't know much about yarn or knitting, this didn't go as quick as it should have). That nagging mommy guilt "friend" came back scolding me for being so thoughtless to bring a child into a store that obviously he wouldn't like with yarn and needles and displays everywhere that he could easily mess up. What was I thinking this "friend" asked?
While I stood at the cash register Asher discovered the fountain right outside the door. He went out to look at it.
Friends, you can guess the next part... he didn't want to leave.
Great! I was back into "Good Mom" status.
And so my day continued labeling and relabeling myself as good or bad because of some crazy standard I have on if I'm doing this mom thing right.
This blog post has grown just as my original column grew to more words than I thought I had in me today.
Anyway, here's a link to the column if you want the solutions I'm trying to implement in my fight against mommy guilt.
2 comments:
The link to your column didn't work, but I was intrigued by your post title.
We did a small study with our church group last year called "The Gospel-Centered Life". As I am a personality that often feels plagued by some sort of guilt, there was definitely a challenge in the study's call the "believe the gospel". And that is the challenge I now pass onto you... believe the gospel. We don't have to measure up to any standards, because our worth is in the righteousness of Christ. Through Christ you are the best mom for your boys that you can be. And you are accepted and loved more than you could ever imagine.
By the way, I would love to see your column if you could tell me what site to visit.
Amanda, Thanks for your encouraging words! They are absolutely true and I need to remember them. I fixed the link to the column so it's working at this moment, but not sure what happened to break it before so hope it won't break again. If it gets broken again, the column is buried at www.pantagraph.com under opinion, blogs/columns, then Hearts at Home. Thanks!
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