How To Be A Good Mom

How To Be A Good Mom.

Kristyn Meyer is on a journey to make herself the best human that she can be. These posts are a reflection of that. She welcomes your support via reading and through commissioned affiliate links within her posts! To stay up to date on all of her shenanigans, please subscribe to her email list! (psst…there’s a free gift involved)

I’ve been thinking lately about the makings of a good Mom. What are they? How do you develop them? Who possesses them?

Are there people out there that are just predisposed to be good mothers? Are they born into this world with a special genetic inheritance that sets them up for mothering success later on?

And above all, do I have those things? Am I a good mother?

What propelled all of this thinking forward was a visit from a childhood friend a few weeks back. Her daughter is between the ages of my two younger children. Seeing the parenting differences between my friend and me really got me thinking.

Preparing lunch:

Her: “Okay, so we have fruit, a protein, and cheese for dairy. What else are we missing?”

Me: *wondering what the other food pyramid parts are*

Going to the apple orchard:

Her: “I have snacks – string cheese, crackers, and apples. And I also brought some bottles of water and a change of clothes.”

Me: “I hope I remembered a diaper since I did put Miralax in the baby’s milk this morning…and also, why do we need apples? We are going to an apple orchard.”

Watching a movie:

Her to her daughter: “Drink some of your water, I don’t think you’ve drunk a lot today”.

Me: *Is that yesterday’s sippy cup that he’s drinking out of or today’s?*

Bathtime:

Her: “Okay, let’s get your hair washed and scrub you up before bed”

Me: “Hey, can you just pour some water over my kids’ heads before they get out? There’s bubble bath in the water so….”

I felt like I was part of the movie “Bad Moms”. Just with far less money.

I started to question my capabilities as a mother. Should I wash my kids’ hair every night like she does? How many snacks should I pack for an excursion, and should they include apples? Why don’t I have a spare set of clothes?

Then I started thinking about the other things I do as a mom. Things that I deem beneficial but she doesn’t necessarily. My kids eat a lot of organic foods, whereas my friend doesn’t see the importance. I recently quit my job to be home more with my kids, whereas my friend is perfectly content working outside the home. We have different frames of mind and make different decisions because of those.

Bottom line: we are both making the choices that we are out of love. Everything we do is because of the immense amount of love that we have for our kids. Nothing else. We do the things that we determine are best because we love them.

Maybe she knows all of the food pyramid choices and her daughter gets those at every meal. That’s great. But so is organic milk. Perhaps her daughter’s hair smells like roses every night as she lays in bed. Mine doesn’t have that luxury, but she also doesn’t smell like dirt, so there’s that. She’s still alive, and happy. So no real harm done.

There’s no parenting manual out there to tell us what we are doing wrong. There’s also not one to tell us what we are doing right. But all in all, we go with our instinct. We know the needs of our children and we put them above all else. It all boils down to love, and that’s the gist of it. Standards may vary from home to home and mother to mother, but the baseline is always the exact same.

Love.

And that’s how to be a good mom.