Give Yourself Grace In Parenthood
Remember to allow God’s grace in and be gentle with yourself no matter your stage in parenthood.
The rug was pulled out from under me when I was suddenly put on bed rest at 25 weeks while still having three little kids four and under at home to take care of.
“What can you cut?” mentioned our high-risk pregnancy doctor during one of our first meetings.
I thought to myself, what exactly does she mean? She alluded to the fact that during this challenging time, to take it physically easy when it comes to parenting and cut some of our rules and routines to ease the burden of care.
When I first became a mother, I thought there was an unspoken hard and fast rule that you were “supposed” to bathe your children every other day. When I had my first baby, I gave her regular baths around the clock and followed a tight schedule. But as our family grew and time was less available, things began to shift in our household. No longer was it feasible for me to give my children baths every other day or stick to a rigorous nap schedule without making myself crazy and feeling like I was going to fall off the edge of the world. I was consumed with the stress that I needed to keep things in order, and my kids constantly busy to best provide for them and raise a successful family. Unbeknown to me, I had unconsciously thought I needed to do all these things and more to be the ultimate mom. Other mothers around the world and myself are influenced by carefully curated social media feeds and advertisements targeting insecurities, broadcasting to the world how things should or shouldn’t look, or suggesting maybe we aren’t doing things the “right” way to certain standards.
My husband and I made a decision that day during our meeting with the doctor to lean into what she suggested, and trust our instincts as parents as to what exactly works for our family. This is something that I need to admittedly work on outside of just being on bed rest, but as an everyday stay-at-home parent. I need to get comfortable with not always having the laundry folded and the dishes put away. I realized I needed to come to terms that these wild years with tiny littles are temporary, and all too soon, they will be grown up, and those precious moments where I was frantic about running a smooth household will be wasted. And most importantly, to every person in the world that is caught up in comparison when scrolling through social media feeds, let’s remember to give ourselves grace, be gentle with ourselves, and truly know that we all are doing the best we can to get by.
As a close friend of mine once mentioned, “embrace the mess.” For me, this means reconnection and being brought back to my humble Faith through Mass and spiritual readings, and remembering that there’s more to life than trying to live up to our own impossible standards and the standards of society. By turning to God, Our Lady, Mass homilies, lighting candles in church, and channeling the Saints and holy partners, I was able to begin to understand that the most we can do as parents is love our children unconditionally as Jesus loves us, despite how messy parenthood can be. If that means taking it easy and forgoing baths, and maybe eating cookies for breakfast, then go for it. Because if we continue to bombard ourselves with so many “we shoulds” or “we must do this” we lose sight of our mission here on Earth, to guide our little ones on a holy path and love one another unconditionally.