On Perfection

There's this image on social media of the mother who knows and does it all. She has a Pinterest board with all her favorite toddler lunches. She prints and laminates new toddler activities every week. She creates sensory bins with every new holiday. She gets out to the zoo and science museum with ease. And she never ever feels burnt out.

Have you seen her, floating around Instagram? I have, and it doesn't leave me feeling very good about myself. But here's the good news. This perfect mother does not exist (nothing on social media really does, am I right?). It's impossible to know and do everything to perfection as a mother, and for good reason!

Motherhood doesn't have an end point. There is no finale, no thesis, no end goal. Motherhood ebbs and flows with life because if it didn't, we can and will face failure after failure as we try to parent today's child with yesterday's view. We change our mothering with each new developmental phase, with what's happening in the world, with our mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing.

What makes a good mother is our ability to adapt, to evolve. To meet our child's needs in every phase of life, and to love them through it all.