When looking at other bloggers, maybe it's just me, but I get the impression sometimes that my vulnerability and honesty leads people to respect me less. Sometimes comments left on my blog (both the ones I publish and choose not to publish) portray feelings of disappointment or even "why is someone like THIS even a parent."
I guess I had myself convinced that the feelings I have in my low points are ones shared by all parents. But maybe that just isn't true.
The intention of this post is to explain how I worked through these feelings last night, not to solicit comments about how I'm wonderful or anything like that...
I realized last night that I've been comparing myself, subconsciously, to other bloggers who have been parents for more than 20 years. I am comparing myself to folks who had birth children before they adopted. I am comparing myself to moms who only work part time or who don't work outside of the home at all.
We were married three months before we became parents to a 19 month old. Before our second anniversary we were parenting kids who were 11, 9, 3 and 2. Now that we have been married 10.5 years, we have 10 children ranging from 10-20 years in age.
I know SO MUCH MORE than I did 10 years ago and I'm a much better parent, but I'm still learning. I have not yet mastered any of the things I KNOW I should do, and attempt to every day, but just can't seem to get right.
I don't know that we'll have the energy or desire to adopt again, but sometimes I hope we will. Because we know so much more now.
And I'm going to cut myself some slack when I start the internal comparison between my parenting and the parenting of others. I wish I could be a mom like so and so, or whats her name, or even Jane Doe, but I'll just be the best me I can be. And I'm hoping that each day I'll have more answers and that some day I'll be comparable.
On the Home for the Holidays special, there was a segment that I thought was awesome. An adoptive mom was talking about her new daughter and she said, "We made a list of all the things we WANTED in a daughter and we ended up with the daughter we NEEDED."
I hope that someday my children will find this to be true. That God, in all of his wisdom, may not have given these children the mother who fit the list of the things they wanted, but that I was the mother they needed.
5 comments:
You really need to get a much thicker skin. It's very easy, especially for anonymous commenters, to make critical comments.
I get them on my blog all the time, and I think they can all go pound sand.
Well, the truth is, I have pretty tough skin. It's more about my interpretations of what I'm reading and seeing than about the comments...
But you're statement "I think they can all go pound sand" is hilarious.
Thanks for the laugh.
I wrote a post just for you... You can read it here.
I think you are going though something that ALL parents go though. Not just adoptive ones (since I am not one yet). I think when someone is doing something that they care about SO much much, parenting, specifically being a Mom, it is hard, impossible almost to look at other MOm's and say "well I don't X, I must be a bad mom" or "I do Y, so that lady must be a better mom then me". I also think that because we (read I) am insecure I want to say "at least I don't do Z" and that is probably where the negitive comments are coming from. I could really go on and on about this but I don't thinkt hat is the point. I just want to say, that I totally understand how hurtful it would be if others negitivally attacked my parenting.
(((hugs)))
Amie :)
Someone said once, we compare our back rooms to everyone else's front rooms. Meaning our worst with someone else's best. You do not want to be at my house when I am scraping the bottom of my parenting abilities. It isn't pretty and I am not proud of it. But it is real life in our house. "Somedays a diamond, somedays a stone."
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