The Perfect Mum, the Perfect Person.

Are you the perfect mother?  Do you know the perfect mother?  Do you wish you were the perfect mother?  or are you like me, beat yourself up because you feel like you're not the perfect mother?

I don't mean this to sound negative, but I think as mother's we often feel that we are not good enough.  I know I do.  I recognise that I'm human and I make many mistakes.  I wish I could change the way that I have done some of the things that I have done as a mother.  I'd like to think that I could be the best mother that I could be.

I love my children with all my heart.... I wish they knew just how much I love them and I wish I could show them how much I love them.  


I love them for who they are and what they have become.  I love them because they are my children and they are a part of me. 

I want the very best for them in life, even when they can't see that for themselves.

I want my children to know that they didn't come with a manual that taught me how to be a mum and do things perfectly.

I am human, I am imperfect, I am me, the individual as well as being a mother.  It's hard sometimes to find the me that isn't the mother, the me that is just a woman and a person, not a mother, but just an individual.

At 36 years of age I became a single mother of 5 children, when my marriage ended.  I grew up in a single parent family when my dad was killed when I was 6 years old.  It wasn't until I became a single parent that I realised how hard it was for my mum to do it alone: how hard it was to be both a mother and a father to my children.  I didn't want it to be this way.  I never wanted it to be this way; but then who does.  I wanted my children to grow up in family with two parents, both a mother and a father, living together.  

It would be so easy for me to be bitter and angry at the way in which my marriage ended, but I don't see the point.  I can't change the past, or what has happened.  There are times and moments in the struggles that I want to scream at my ex and say, why???  But then who wouldn't want to scream at the ex when he leaves you and goes off with your best friend.  (Well here I am getting really personal, and never thought I would say that here on my blog .... but anyway I've said it).  Why did you leave me alone??  Why did you feel that we couldn't work it out.  But I can't change it.  I want to say why did you leave your family and especially your children??  

I could stay stuck on that path, but I've realised that the best thing I can do under the circumstances is to be the best person that I can.  To be the happiest person I can be and have the best life that I can.  Even when I feel sad, I talk to myself and say that the only person that can make my situation different is me.  One thing I've learnt in all of this is acceptance ... acceptance of who I am, acceptance of my situation.  Man, your self-esteem goes out the window when something like a divorce happens, you question everything about who you are and you definitely question if you are a worthwhile person or not.

Two of my children don't talk to me and at first that was so hard.  I did a lot of crying at night.  Somehow, and eventually I found a way to move on from that.  I realised that there was nothing I could do, I had no control over the situation and so I had to find acceptance of what I couldn't change.  Of course I live in hope of one day .... things will be different, who doesn't .... but I don't dwell on it and am realistic enough to know that it may never happen.

I love the SERENITY PRAYER .... I love it because I've learnt to live by it in my life.  

God grant me the 

SERENITY

to accept the things I cannot change, 

the COURAGE 

to change the things I can, 

and the 

WISDOM

to know the difference.

The lessons I've learnt along the way and am most grateful for are that:

• I know that the only thing I can change and make different in my life is me.  The only thing I have control over is me.  

• I don't have control over anyone else or anything that others do.  

• One day at a time is the only way to deal with those days when life doesn't seem so good .... and I have a few of those. 

• Recognise that you can't be perfect, no one can.  Thank goodness, because I can't keep beating myself up forever.