From the time I became a Mom, I heard people telling me that the parenting journey goes quickly. Sweet older women at church would tell me to savor it all as it is gone in a flash and random women at the grocery store would suggest I enjoy it while I could. 

They weren’t entirely wrong, but what I made that mean for me as a parent at the time was not the most helpful. I turned that into pressure. I didn’t want to miss anything, and at various points, it felt like I was down to the wire in a tie ballgame, and if I didn’t score my kids and I would lose. 

I didn’t want to miss things, and more than anything I wanted to get it “right.” But, the catch is that there is no uniformly decided “right” way to do parenting. My version of doing it right might look completely different from my friends' vision or my family’s. 

I spent a great deal of time as a young mom not only trying to do it right but also beating myself up when I did things “wrong.” I would tell myself things like “I’m not very good at getting my kids on a sleep schedule” when they were small, and while I could have been more structured now I can look back and see that there was nothing wrong with the way that I was showing up at that time. Ironically, this beating myself up took away from the time I could have been just present as a Mom.

I can still connect with the same physical feeling in the pit of my stomach that would come if I missed something like a dress-up day or a form that needed to be signed when the kids were in early elementary school. As they got older, the examples of what I could have done differently may have changed, but they were still there (I should have some something different to that other parent, or I should have thought about the summer camps sooner, or I should have provided different rules or consequences).

Becoming a coach and learning to keep an eye on my parenting mindset has shifted that for me. My brain still likes to jump to self-criticism, BUT I can see them for what they are now. I know that my brain just wants to protect me from some future negative outcome if I don’t do it “right” in the present. 

However, that’s the thing, there is no perfect way to parent. My kids will learn from what I do well AND what they see as me not doing well. They will also learn as much or more from watching how I handle those miscues or missteps. Of course, I want to prevent them from having any negative experiences as a parent but that just isn’t going to happen. They are going to experience both the good and bad, and their feelings are not mine to manage.

My feelings, though, are my own to manage and that is the key to the shift I have made for myself. There is no great upside to me blasting and criticizing myself for what I could have done differently. That doesn’t mean I might not still want to make changes for next time, but coming from a place of curiosity about my approach has served me much better than the judgmental voice in my brain.

It would be easy for me to question now whether or not I should have worked more or less, done more or less, been more involved or less, but I know that I did the best I could with what I had at the time. 

No matter what I do as a parent, my kids may have a different definition of what would have been “right” for them, and that is OK. Missing an occasional dress-up day, some forgotten lunches, and yelling more than I would have liked didn’t feel good at the time, but those things didn’t make me a “bad” mom any more than volunteering in the classroom, sending nut-free snacks, and going to all the sporting events and activities made me a “good” mom. 

Choosing to think that I was the best mom I could be at the time for both of my kids feels a lot better than thinking I was lacking. And when I choose to believe I did the best I could and still am now, I open myself up to showing up with more love, curiosity and compassion for them and myself right. And for me, that is the new “right” way to show up as a parent.