What Makes a Good Mom?

What Makes a Good Mom?

From All the Questions, Comes the Answer That Matters Most

As Moms, we must question our parenting a million times or more in a week. Do these sound familiar?

Am I spending enough time with my children?

Am I spending too much time with my children?

Am I feeding them the right foods?

Why won’t they eat healthy foods?

Did I give them a enough hugs this week?

Did I yell too loud?

Was I too harsh with my punishment?

Should I have read that “one more book” at bedtime?

Should I have left them with that new babysitter?

Will they be safe at school?

Should I homeschool?

Will it be okay if I go back to work?

Will it be okay if I stay home?

Will they need therapy because of me someday?

Yeah, I know,  you’re like, “what do you mean a week, that was in the last 10 minutes?!”

Anyways, a few weeks ago I was scanning my twitter feed and another blogger had tweeted the title to a new blog post, it was something like – 7 Ways to Know You are a Good Mom.  I almost clicked on the link for all the same reasons that I subscribe to about every parenting magazine there is and have read stacks of parenting books and follow hundreds of parenting blogs.  I want validation. I WANT TO KNOW THAT I AM DOING IT RIGHT!!!!!

However, Before I even knew what was happening, I had typed off this super fast response and hit “reply”. Here’s what it said:

“I think an often overlooked, but simple way to know that you are a good mom is if you are actually worrying about being a good mom.”

Wow, profound right? The reality is if we are spending that much time worrying about our choices, and thinking about our actions, and wondering what the ultimate impact of every little thing we do or don’t do will be on our children, then we clearly love them and so we clearly must be do something right.

I think that maybe we don’t actually need answers to all those questions. We just need to know that the very act of asking them means we are already good moms.