Full Time, All the Time
with Britt and Robyn
I'm Britt. I work full time as a mom, wife, blogger and salesperson with a fancy management title. And I'm Robyn. I work as a project manager and between corporate meetings manage to cook a home-made meal every day. This blog is about our experiences of juggling full-time work with family.
Check out our personal blogs:
Miss Britt and Who's the Boss?
The recent post about the benefits to children of working moms and the subsequent “Why are we still talking about this?” post have sparked quite a bit of discussion - both among the readers here and in my own head.
What? You have discussions inside your own head, too, right?
One of the common themes that kept coming up was confidence. Well, that and doubt - which I suppose is the opposite of confidence.
As a mother - working or not - something I struggle with is confidence in my ability to be a good parent. There is a part of me that instinctively knows that I’m a good mom. I look at my children, who are happy, healthy, wonderful little people, and I believe that I must be doing a good job to be raising two amazing people. But, there is also another part of me who makes a decision, feels great about my decision, and then notices all of the people around me making different decisions and thinks “CRAP! What am I doing?!? What if I’m wrong?!? What if I am RUINING THEM FOR LIFE!?!”
I’ll let you guess which of those parts is confidence.
Somehow, I’ve accepted that dichotomy of doubt and confidence in myself. What I have a harder time accepting is seeing doubt in other mothers.
It breaks my heart when I hear a woman say “I’m scrambling to find another babysitter to dump my kids with at the last minute because mine backed out. I know, I know, I’m a great mother,” and I can feel her sarcasm and insecurity. I want to hug the woman in the mall whose child throws a temper tantrum, despite her desperate attempts to discpline and nurture and avoid making a scene all at the same time. I see the look of shame and fear on her face, and I want to tell her that no one here is thinking that she’s doing a bad job.
As a woman and as a mother, I believe that it is important to find ways to make myself and other mothers feel more confident about their parenting. Confident mothers raise confident people. Confident people do good things in the world.
What can we do to build confidence in mothers?
- Focus on our strengths. As comforting as it is to share in our struggles, it is important, too, to have a safe place to brag about our triumphs. Tell people what you do well, and point out to others what you notice they do well.
- Hold off on the advice. Sometimes a woman is asking for advice - but sometimes she’s simply talking out loud. Take the time to listen without figuring out how you can “help” or “fix” her situation. Show her that you believe in her ability to come up with the solution that’s right for her.
- Forgive your own mother. I entered into parenting with a long list of maternal mistakes my mother had made that I was determined not to repeat. And then I realized what a self righteous, naive idiot I was. I’ve come to appreciate that my mother has always done the very best she could - and I didn’t turn out too badly. Appreciating my own mother’s journey (and realizing that she did not, in fact, ruin me) helps me face my own parenthood with less trepidation.
What else can we do to build each other up?
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Stop acting like this is a competition. It’s not. We all might have different methods, be comfortable with different things, but we all love our kids and just want to do what we feel is best for them.
Finn | July 22nd, 2009 at 8:47 am
Yes, and stop judging each other, even if it is only in our own heads.
Robyn | July 22nd, 2009 at 8:48 am
You make a really good point about encouraging other moms - as in, actually taking the time to say out loud the things you thinbk about saying to encourage her. Ah, if we could alll remember to do that….
Whatsananna | July 22nd, 2009 at 9:43 am
I don’t have so much an answer to the closing question as I do a big, fat THANK YOU for posting this. Mostly because I’m one of those mothers who worries, constantly, that in spite of all evidence to the contrary, I’m doing it wrong or out of step with the norms of parenting. I also find myself worrying that people will think I’m a terrible mother when, for instance, Amelie took it upon herself to remove her diaper in her crib, not “let us know” that something was up, and then stand in there and wave at the neighbors outside sans pants and diaper, peeing everywhere all the while.
Even though I know that kids do this stuff, I was still horrified at what everyone must have thought of us (they probably thought, “Oh, those poor parents…wait’ll they see what she’s done! Tee hee!”) and then horrified at my own horror.
It’s nice to know that these doubts are common. It really is. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Phe | July 22nd, 2009 at 10:34 am
Thank you for posting this. I have to tell myself every once in a while that my son thinks I’m an awesome mom and that’s what counts. I’ll re-read this post when I have another wave of “worry”.
Maria | July 22nd, 2009 at 11:56 am
Thinking into the future instead of just at the moment when all hell is breaking loose. I mean, some moments are parenting failures, and every parent has those moments. But you have to remind yourself that this is just one moment, that three minutes from now your child will probably be quiet and smiling, and a week from now he’ll be acting more mature as a result of your holding your ground during the tough moments, and years from now your child will have completely ceased using “screeching” or “biting” as a problem-solving technique and will actually be a role model for others.
Remembering the great (past) moments helps too.
Also, here’s something I do - I don’t know if others do it too. I periodically look online for milestone information against which to compare my kids. If I were a terrible mother, there would be some areas where my kids were near or below the bottom of the “normal” range, with no plan in place to help them improve. If I’m a great mom, they will be above average in some areas, and there will be a plan in place to shore up their weak areas. Working toward an objective goal seems more healthy than making emotionally-charged comparisons (e.g., with friends’ kids) or just blindly hoping that I’m on the right track.
You can also seek professional guidance if you’re seriously concerned that your child isn’t on the right track in any respect. Often just sitting down with an expert for an hour will validate the parent’s choices; other times, they can make helpful suggestions; or sometimes they will identify a developmental issue, enabling the parent to better focus his/her efforts and define realistic expectations. Either way, it generally leads to greater peace of mind.
SKL | July 22nd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I LOVE the idea of focusing on the strengths. Just this morning my husband called and wished my daughter good luck as I was driving her to a kindergarten reading test. As she hung up the phone, she said - “It is nice of daddy to wish me well, you never say good luck or congratulations”. Eventhough I do tons of positive assertions, at that point she thought I had not said enough and her dad had. I believe that every word of appreciation or support matters.
Lakshmi | July 23rd, 2009 at 12:13 pm
These are great to keep in mind! It’s interesting how quickly moms jump to give advice (myself included). One of my go-to resources is a mom of triplets and I find it so intriguing how she had no choice but to have multiple views on the “right” way to do things all at once because no child is the same, even if they came into the world together. I try to keep this in mind when a mom asks me for advice, that I only have ideas that worked/didn’t work for my one little guy.
Brenda | July 26th, 2009 at 9:15 pm