making the grade in motherhood

friends, this may be my favorite parenting story of all time.

so a few months ago, as my girl was getting started in her childrens’ psychology class, she called me and said, ‘hey momma…i need your help.’  {my favorite four words in the english language} 

you see, she was a assigned a ‘virtual child’ to to raise.  which a virtual child is the new-fangled version of the family living classic assignment which, depending how old you are, was probably either 1.) duct-tape wrapped flour sack that you carried around in high school or 2.) the robo-baby with the key that you had to turn whenever the baby cried.

anyway, my girl begins telling me about this program/app whatever you want to call it.  it starts by asking the student some questions about him/herself and then some questions about the kind of mate they are looking for.  and from that questionnaire it then generates a child based on some of those characteristics.  pretty cool right?

well then the real assignment begins because once the child is born, the program starts giving the student various, real-life situations and for each situation, the student is given usually three or four choices for how to handle it.  there was usually one answer that even someone from mars would know is the wrong answer, but there were also at least a couple of answers that could be right depending on the situation. and then at the end of the semester, the student receives a grade on their assignment based on how well they cared for this virtual kid.

well with a virtual newborn around two weeks old is where my girl found herself on the day of that of this phone call.  because her virtual newborn wasn’t eating well and she wasn’t exactly sure what she should do.  the two most likely answers to choose from were a) called the doctor or b) wait until the next feeding to see if it was better.

anyway, so kelsey is asking me what she should do about her virtual baby’s problem and i told her that if it was me, i would wait until the next feeding.  so kelsey chooses B and then that generates some kind of algorithm i guess and then the next question comes up and the it goes on and on.  kinda like motherhood right?

well after about 30 minutes on the phone with this virtual baby, and these questions with no real right or wrong answers, kelsey, in total exasperation says to me,

so let me see if i’ve got this straight…i’ve got this kid and i have to make all these hard decisions and i won’t know if i’ve done it right until the end??? this is crazy!!

{insert pause for laughter}

once i stopped laughing long to regain my composure, i told her than in fact…this is exactly how it works.

motherhood is not for sissies.

i had this friend who used to tell me that this is the time in a woman’s life that her chicken come home to roost.  and i never really knew what that meant until kelsey was away at school.  and all those decisions i made along the way – whether conscious or otherwise – i now see how they are working in my child’s life.  and thanks to the gift of 20 years of hindsight, i think i maybe could have done some things a little a differently.  i wonder…maybe i should have made her stay in piano lessons.  or maybe i should have made her go to camp when she was twelve.  but you know, i did the best i could.  made the best decision i could with the information i had at the time.

so maybe you’re reading this and you’re rolling your eyes because you’re the mom with all the answers.  maybe you have never doubted yourself and your parenting abilities. maybe you’ve done everything perfectly and would get an A+ on your assignment.  and if that’s the case, well then this blog post isn’t for you.

this blog post if for the moms who maybe let their toddler watch an extra thirty minutes of barney so they could unload the dishwasher without ‘help’.  moms who sent their kids to school when they were sick.  sick enough that they probably should have stayed home, but who didn’t have anymore sick days and didn’t want to piss of their boss.  moms who told their teenage daughter to quit being a hypochondriac only to learn two days later that she had an infected bug bite and chicken pox.

pretty sure i’d get an F for those.

i think as mothers sometimes we tend to focus on all these things to much.  times when we have failed to hit the mark.  i know i have.

but today, instead of focusing on that, i want to celebrate us.  the imperfect mothers who have slept sitting upright in a chair with a sick baby in their arms.  mothers who read ‘go dog go’ just one more time even though they were so tired they could barely hold they eyes open.  mothers who stood in shower in the middle of the night washing the vomit out of their daughter’s hair and then changed the sheets where she threw up red gatorade all over the bed.  today is for the moms who helped glue candy wrappers to school art projects and ran through the times table flashcards every night.  today is for the moms who stayed up late to wash their girl’s favorite pink shirt for picture day and for the moms who sit quietly while their girl cries all the way home from her last day of the school she won’t be going back to.  today is for moms who hold back tears on the hardest day of her life so as to not spoil the joy of the best day of her child’s.

surely these count for some kind of extra credit.

for me, motherhood is messy, and hard, and imperfect at best. and i have made mistakes along the way. things i wish so desperately i could do over.  motherhood is at times frustrating and heart-breaking, but yet, motherhood is the most wonderful, gratifying, inspiring thing i have ever done with moments of pure joy.  and i am so blessed by my beautiful girl who sees me for who i am and knows how much i love her.  who forgives me for all my imperfections and brings me so much joy.

and today i am personally celebrating the fact that i have a mother with a fierce kind of love that makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. a mother who would walk through fire for me if needed her.  a mother like me who maybe doesn’t have all the answers either but has a few extra years of hindsight that she’ll gladly share. a mother who will sit on the phone with me and let me pour out my fears.  a mother who will let me be independent and crash and burn and then be there to pick up the pieces.  and that is what i call making the grade in motherhood.  and that is the kind of mother i want to be.

happy mother’s day friends.

love, kelly