Mothers Day

I don't have the girls this weekend. So I'm reflecting on mothering. As I struggle through this custody battle with Kyle, I fight the urge to allow his accusations to color my view of myself in my motherhood role. That is a hard fought battle. When my co-parent believes me to be toxic to "his" children, my confidence is bruised. When a lot of the conflict in my home stems directly from Kyle's unwillingness to parent and his unwillingness to assimilate knowlege, it's easy to want to give up.
I remember seeing a bumper sticker that says "where do mothers go to retire". Funny because there isn't an option of retiring as a mom. You're a mom till the day you die.

Mothering is not always joyous or tender and it doesn't come naturally, with instinct all the time. (or hardly ever!) Mothering is being willing to let someone else hold a piece of your heart for the rest of your life, and NOT yank it back, no matter how much it's hurting. It's being able to sacrifice the right things for the right reason and still keep sight of who you are and what you stand on, because that is essential to show your children.
It's filtering information and advice through what you know of your children and what you know of life and using that to be therapist, counsellor, confidante and boss in their lives.

What qualifies us to perform these tasks of mothering when we all come from different places, different homes, different lifestyles, we have different expectations and education and experiance, yet we all have the same duties to perform. So what makes each of us, in our different places, effective mothers?

We have heart, we have love and we have desire to do the right things for our children. We have the attachment and connection with our children that makes us the expert on their needs. We are going in the same place, to release our children into the world as emotionally whole, intelectually sound, morally vibrant individuals who will contribute to and make a difference in their society.
We get to that place in vastly different ways, we have different rules and different structure to our homes, but success in parenting is not measured in process, or procedure.
When our children don't "turn out" or when they make choices for their lives that make no sense, are destructive or scary, does that make us failures as parents?
I struggle with that issue, and my two cents is that we have not failed, but we have not been effective in channeling the spirit of our children into healthy outlets.
Does that heap all responsibility of our children's choices on to us? I don't believe it does, for in the mix is also the freedom of will and of choice and thought that our children have, and I hope we all nurture and value those qualities in our children, the balance is simply that we do not merely teach rules of behavior, but we teach values and principles by modeling them and talking about them in our homes.
To give them real life practice making choices, give them consequences to their actions and choices, harness the teaching moments and communicate.
Add to that piles of unconditional love and affection, and purposeful parenting and we have given our children a fighting chance.
That's our responsibility.
Mistakes happen, we have to apologize and make things right with our kids, as we do with any other relationship, we have to respect them as in any other relationship but we have to keep our role as the alpha female strong.
It's daunting and obviously I'm no expert, but this is my take on it.
Happy mothers day to you all, and I wish you courage in your journey of mothering.