I have a confession to make: I’ve judged you. And I know you’ve judged me.
That moment we’re dragging our screaming toddler by the leg out of the grocery store; that time we let our child eat nothing but fruit snacks for a week, and those many times we’ve came over to your “just got bombed” disaster of a house.
Am I proud of this? Definitely not. Will I do it again? Probably, I’m not perfect. Does it hurt? Like a Mother….
Recently, a dear friend and I started talking about surviving Mommy-hood and how challenging it is. It’s not easy, and for any of you out there that will say otherwise, I have a large wooden spoon with your name on it. The daily adventure just to be a great decent mother and wife is a battle all in its own, and then you step out of your house!
In Lorilee Craker’s Just Give Me a Little Peace of Quiet devotional for moms, she expressed my thoughts perfectly….
“The longer I’m a mother, the more I see that we mom’s need to be each other’s cheerleaders. We all have issues that, for whatever reason, are vital to our mothering, but to impose our standards and choices on other moms is shortsighted and selfish. Instead of judging, we need to adopt a “live and let live” attitude about other moms and focus on our own efforts to be the women and mothers God called us to be.”
Can I get an amen!
We women need to surround each other with love, give encouragement, show a little compassion and just be down right honest with one another.
With the rise of social medias, it is so easy to deceive and picture together what looks like to the rest of us, this beautiful picture of your “perfect” day. When in reality, you’re seconds away from locking your children outside, dinner is setting off every smoke alarm in the house and you haven’t washed your hair (let alone shaved your legs) in 4 days. True story.
I guess my rickety soap box rant today is just to share my frustration not only with myself, but with my fellow women and mothers. It’s really hard for me to help/encourage/pray for you, and you for me, when we put up a false Stepford front. I know and you know, it’s not always a well weeded bed of roses….shoot, I can’t even keep anything alive!
In honor of being completely honest with you…here is a no filter, no make-up, no shower photo of me at this very moment, and although dinner is in the crockpot, my legs need to be shaved, my toilets are dirty, toys are EVERYWHERE, and at one point in the past two days I honestly thought my toddler needed to be socked in the face. Motherhood: never a dull moment.
So, let us stop the petty judgements, lack of support and darn right nastiness, and instead help one another embrace the wonderful craziness that God has blessed us with!
