I am a terrible parent.

At church last Wednesday night a well meaning, sweet lady with almost grown children asked me how things were going and if my kids were staying well. . .this lead us into a conversation in which she said to me “Every moment raising my children was an absolute joy.”

I am pretty sure it’s a double sin to lie in the church building. But I don’t believe she was intentionally lying to me. She’s just crazy. No, actually she has amnesia, a special form of this disease that affects mothers once their hoodlum children grow up and all they have left to cling to are memories from the past. I have a theory that once your kids are grown up you forget about the meltdowns in the middle of the grocery store, you block out the memories of your children coloring your desk with permanent markers, and you completely disregard any recollections of the nightly dinnertime/bathtime/bedtime battles.

But after we got home and I thought about it more, I thought to myself how inconsiderate it was for her to say that. It made me feel like a terrible parent.  I know she didn’t mean anything negative, if anything she thought she was encouraging me (a young tired looking mother) as she also said, “cherish the moments because they will be grown in a blink of an eye” . . . which are words that I hear just about on a daily basis and they make me feel horrible every time. 

I try. Honestly, I do. Especially with the recent loss of my childhood friend who had two small children, it’s really put things into a new perspective for me. We don’t know how much time we have with our kids, so I want to be a sweet, loving mother all the time and I want to relish every second I have with my precious children. And they are a precious gift from God. . .but, let me tell you, every moment with my kids is not a joy. Am I so blessed to be their mother?- of course! Am I grateful for each and every day the Lord gives me to be their mother?- without a doubt! Do I love them more than words can express?- absolutely. Do I enjoy every single moment I’m with them?-Uh, not so much.

Does that make me a terrible parent? Maybe. Or maybe it just makes me human. I am not superwoman, I have weaknesses- lots of them! One major weakness is I let my kids get the best of me and sometimes I lose my rationality, coherence, reason, judgement temper and yell and sometimes I have to put myself in timeout to keep from killing my three year old. And {here comes the bomb. . .} sometimes I have to give Stratton candy, sit him in front of the TV and let Arden cry in her crib with the door shut while I sit in my bathroom with the fan on to drown out the noise, just to get a moment of peace. {BOOM.} There. I said it. Now all of you know my deep, dark secret. I’m a terrible mom.

I saw this article today and boy did I ever need to read it!! Sometimes, God works through many different outlets to send us messages. I think he knew I needed to hear this today. . .

To parents of small children: Let me be the one who says it out loud.

My favorite quotes from the article. . .

“You are not a terrible parent if you can’t figure out a way for your children to eat as healthy as your friend’s children do. She’s obviously using a bizarre and probably illegal form of hypnotism.

You are not a terrible parent if you yell at your kids sometimes. You have little dictators living in your house. If someone else talked to you like that, they’d be put in prison.

You are not a terrible parent if you can’t figure out how to calmly give them appropriate consequences in real time for every single act of terrorism that they so creatively devise.

You are not a terrible parent if you’d rather be at work.

You are not a terrible parent if you just can’t wait for them to go to bed.

You are not a terrible parent if the sound of their voices sometimes makes you want to drink and never stop.

You’re not a terrible parent.“

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Jarrod and I try SO HARD to be consistent and not lose our temper and provide consequences for misbehavior, BUT it’s a challenge. Like a “climbing Mt. Everest” kind of feat. Some days I feel like all I do is get on to Stratton. And at the end of those days I feel awful. I know discipline is a necessity but it’s hard because it makes me feel so guilty! I love my kids and I hate punishment. But I don’t want my kids to be disrespectful, lying, brats either. So, the wooden spoon prevails.

I do make sure I tell Stratton how much I love him and how good and special he is and how no matter what bad thing he has done, he is not a bad boy. I think this is SO important! And most of the time if we’ve had an especially hard day, I am mindful of that in our family prayer time. Sometimes Stratton will pray for “Stratton to be better” which melts and breaks my heart all at the same time.

I can only hope and pray (and pray and pray and pray) that someday it will all be worth it. That our kids will be decent, law abiding, good Christian, adults that don’t hate their parents and aren’t a drain on society. I guess that’s all I can really ask for.

In the meantime we will continue to enjoy and celebrate the good times with our kids, knowing they will all too quickly be grown. But I won’t feel bad for the moments I have a breakdown and cry find myself overwhelmed by my kids and have to sink to giving in and letting them have their way just to save my sanity.

I’m not a terrible parent, after all.