(Picture taken from Viking Jenn's blog--check it out!)
We know them all.
There is the mom who curls her daughter's hair, never goes out without makeup, knows all the rules of football and makes an amazing lemon tart.
There is the mom who homeschools her kids, sews her own clothes, only buys organic foods and meditates every morning.
There is the mom who hauls three kids back and forth on the bus all day, goes the laundromat twice a week, works two jobs and feeds her kids McDonald's.
There is the mom who brings her kids to school in pajamas, has the TV on all night, and leans out the window to smoke her cigarettes.
I mean, we know them all, right?!
Wrong. We don't know sh--. (Sorry for almost swearing, granny...)
Do we know anything about these women's lives? Not unless we live a day in their shoes. "Judge not, lest you yourselves be judged."
This morning I brought my son to school with no coat, no shoes or socks, and no hat. In the winter. I got some stares, for sure. But what these gapers don't know is that I dressed him three times, and each time he stripped everything off. I decided to let him feel the cold, so that tomorrow (hopefully) he will keep his winter gear on.
My neighbors have heard me yell at my kids many, many times. I threw my daughter's prized pink water bottle across the room the other day and broke it. I dumped an entire bottle of chocolate milk in the sink this morning. Then I sobbed in my room.
What "kind" of mom does that make me? Some would say, and have said to my face, that I am crazy. I have a mental illness and need to be on medication. I will end up hurting my kids if I don't get myself under control.
So that's the mom I am.
I have been put into a box and slapped with a label.
(Taken from http://www.clker.com/clipart-203947.html)
It's not fair. The label doesn't even begin to capture my essence. By looking at that label you would never know all the positive things I tried before simply losing my patience. You would never know the daily struggles I go through.
I confess, shamefully, that the moms I described above are stereotypes of my own making. I have labeled moms according to external appearances, and then I judge them according to my own limited experiences.
To you moms, I'm so terribly sorry. I'm in this with you.
People will not watch the moments of positive and remember them nearly as much as the moments when we've finally broke! Unfortunately I think it's a way of the watcher to have feelings of being better, being perfect. Everyone has different trials..... could it be the trials we go thru, the pain and hardships, will one day help us to understand others when we see them go thru their trials? I can only hope!
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