When life slows down for a few minutes here and there, I ponder my kids and my parenting. When I was a very young mom, I thought I could “mold” my kids into perfect children. Well, almost twenty two years later I laugh about this lie that I believed. I also think about what I did well and my past mistakes in parenting. Will it make a difference in their lives?
Through good friends and their wisdom, lately I’ve been coming to terms with accepting my past mistakes. I now realize that I did the best I could at the time. I had never parented that age child under those circumstances, and I did what I thought was right. Would I do something different today? Probably but…I now know what I would have done today because of what I learned from my mistakes of the past. I want to acknowledge what happened and move on.
When we hold on to shame, it corrupts our relationships with ourself and others. I want to accept my past behavior and acknowledge it but I don’t want to believe shame’s lie. I want to live in today and help my kids do the same.
I know today’s post is rather heavy but sometimes if we can look at this kind stuff in our lives, it will make our tomorrow lighter. Can you relate?
Photo courtesy of Tanakawho (Creative Commons)
