Today as I was walking through the store with my family. A woman, who was an employee approached me.
She had witnessed me, point blank , tell my son after a quick tantrum; ” You will not raise your voice to me, I am your mother.” This was all that I said and my son responded with an apology.
The female employee said with a smile;
” I was just telling another girl what a good mother you are. So many mother’s let their children run wild without respect for other people.”
This, to me, is completely foreign. I have never once thought I was a good mother. I stress over details, discipline, encouragement and as most parents do; when do I get myself back? My child is a constant struggle. A very dear friend told me as of late “The nut cracker works fine, you just have a hard nut to crack”.
This woman in the store admired my approach to child rearing, if you can still call it that. I felt very good, for once about motherhood. Everyone about seems to think I am a good mother, I however disagree. I could be faster, better, smarter, stronger.
Inside of my heart I love my boy, who questions me and tells me I am wrong. He challenges me constantly and while it drives me to madness it also blooms proud in my spirit. I am rasing him as I promised I would.
My rules:
1) I will accept my child no matter what or whom he has decided to become.
2) I will love him completely regardless of any circumstance.
3) I will discipline him for any disrespect of another being, be it animal or human.
4) I will always hold him to his word.
5) I will never tell him a lie.
These are the rules I wrote in my diary long before he was born. I have kept them all. I do not think I am a good mother. He is only four and there is much more to come for him. How he sees me now as an “authority” that will some day change into an “understanding”. I only want to ask of him what I ask of myself. I seem like a harsh mother, but perhaps the woman at the store has given me a new understanding. I was a black sheep child… who struggled against all that was handed to me. Maybe my real purpose in life is to raise this “unexpected” child. To make him my better? Maybe this is what all of us parents are meant to do?
To love and live for, even if we are judged harshly, our children.
The hardest nut of all.