Imperfect Mother

It dawned on me. Something new… a bigger thought…a broader awareness…greatness and an absolute hilarious idea.  I am starting something called the “Imperfect Mother” – yup, that’s me.  Why you ask?  Why on earth would a parent coach highlight her imperfections as a parent? Who on earth would hire the Imperfect Compassionate Parent Coach?  Well, come with me on this journey and you will find out why… keep reading… I promise it will be good.  This is the beginning of a trend that will change the way you see yourself as a parent.  Yes dads… this is for you too. 

Outlined below are the intentions, the foundation, and the emotional elegance that supports my new adventure.  So if you wanted to know all the whys behind the Imperfect Mother here they are:

 Intentions:

•  My imperfection blogs will make you laugh and through laughter is perspective and through perspective you will always get to the heart of what really matters.
• I am just so tired of everybody thinking I am so super – when the truth is that I am human and only half super.  No actually I am all super – but what make’s me super are my imperfections and those should be celebrated.  So I dare you – join me in this adventure.  

 Foundation:

•  I am a huge supporter of self care.  For those of you who know me you know I always make sure that you are filling your glass first before filling your children’s.  Sit with that cup of tea.  Go out with friends.  Get a pedi.  Order in the odd dinner.  Get a sitter.  Run a hot bath.   But wait… it’s deeper than this.  We need to create space for self forgiveness.  We need to make mistakes, we need to let things lapse, we need to forget, we need to screw up, we need to learn and grow…but we never did that through being a perfect parent.  

 Emotional Elegance: 

•  Through you the reader I am going to celebrate my imperfections.  I will share with you how I plan to forgive myself and what I might do differently the next time and you can laugh with me or even at me.  Together we will find the positives in my imperfections… the lessons I need to learn… the lessons my five year old mastered before me… the reasons I am human and that I can love all of my parenting.  You will not hear me say out loud… ‘Does that make me a bad mom?’  In fairness to my imperfections we are going to start with easy ones… surface level stuff… because really the goal is for you to take life less seriously, especially when it comes to parenting.  We are all over doing it.  Reading too much.  Relying on every expert.  Becoming versed in the latest techniques.  When really you are already an amazing parent – all of you, your imperfections and your perfections!  We’ve turned parenting into a psychological, mathematical, logistical, philosophical, sociological study in which we can never do or say anything right and then we tell ourselves that we are epic failures.  Yes that’s right… we cannot even be regular failures, we epically fail.  So put down your books, love your kids, set your boundaries – yes that means you can say no – (I swear on my life they won’t die and if you’re not sure you can look at my kids, cause last time I checked they are all still alive and the grocery bill is just getting larger), and for goodness sake love yourself in the process.  Its of no use to go and get that pedicure if the entire time you are beating yourself up for not being the perfect parent.  From here forward I declare to look at ‘self care’ as ‘self love’ through not only forgiving my imperfections but celebrating them.  So instead of “The Happiness Project”, this is the “Imperfect Project”… below will be my first entry…

 

Imperfect Mother – entry #1.

As I came home today I noticed that my Christmas window decorations are still up… ok wait… that’s a lie… I have noticed them for a while now.  I think if you look closely at the photo you will even see a Halloween decoration too.  Yup it’s in there.  Stuck to the front window for everyone to see!  Huh.  Time for a little ‘self forgiveness’…those decorations make me human.  I am a pretty freaking fantastic mom for buying those cool window decorations in the first place.  Besides I am pretty sure my kids had fun putting them up.  I am sure the mail man thinks the fact that they are still up is pretty funny.   I think I should celebrate the fact that they are still up.  I think that my imperfectly delayed Christmas/Halloween decorating putting away skills call for a little hoopla.  This weekend I am going to make myself a mimosa, put on some music and I am going to peel off those sticky little decorations… all but one, so I can honor the part of me who knew it was ok to leave those up till almost the beginning of March, the part of me that for no good reason left those up, the part of me who loves me regardless of whether those decorations stay up till Starbucks starts serving eggnog lattes again.    

This entry was posted in Compassionate News. Bookmark the permalink.