I received an email from Ashley, my daughter, the other day that had those words in the subject line. She has two active little boys and a newborn. What she wanted to know was, if I had days as a mom when I felt grouchy, impatient, and like a bad mom. She was obviously having one of those days.
My answer was yes. Yes, I had days when I felt like a bad mom. More than I can count. I had days when I cried over that feeling because I had lost my temper, ran out of patience, and was not the mom I wanted to be. But, what I told Ashley was that bad moms don’t feel bad about those kinds of days…it’s the good moms that do because they know that they can do better.
And…when there is a string of bad days, it may be time to make an adjustment. It may be time to get creative, look for a solution, make a change, or ask for help.
I remember a time when my kids were all just old enough to buckle their own seatbelts in the car but, when we would be ready to pull out of the garage and I would ask over and over, is everyone buckled up? “Casey, do you have your seatbelt on? Ashley? Carson, buckle your seatbelt. Dustin, are you buckled in?” Day after day, the same thing. I was losing my patience. I was tired of hearing myself say the same thing, and it was a bad way to start the day or the trip. I was grumpy before we left our subdivision. So, I recorded a CD of myself. My patient, fun mom self. The script was something like this: “Hey everybody, it’s time to leave so get your seat belts buckled. It’s important to be safe and your seatbelt makes you safe. Ashley, are you buckled up? Casey, got your seatbelt buckled? How about you Dustin? Are you ready to go Carson? All buckled up?”
We would all get in the car, and I would play the audio recording until everyone responded. It didn’t take long before they were annoyed by it and would buckle up as soon as they got in the car to avoid listening to their recorded mom. Easy, cheap, and solved the problem.
We are all going to have bad days, let’s just not have too many in a row. Get creative about making an adjustment. It has worked for me…
it has worked for me 