I’ve never really been too good with self-acceptance. I tend to focus on the negative in myself, and when I do something well, I tend to think it’s a fluke.
I look at what I do differently from others, and I assume I am wrong.
I look at what others do better, and I assume I am irrevocably flawed.
I see what I do well, and I trivialize it.
And I see my errors, and I label myself as worthless.
And that’s pretty much how I have spent my life.
In regards to parenting, most everyone will tell you that you have to do what feels right for you. They tell you that you know your children better than anyone else does and that you will make the best choices for them. They tell you not to listen to the advice of others but to rely on your own instincts and wisdom instead.
And that all sounds so good. So very very good.
And maybe that’s why I never followed it.
When Magoo was born, I drove myself batty. I would read every book and I would read every website and magazine article, and I would read all of the Baby Center comments (oh those dreaded Baby Center comments,) and I would beat myself up.
Was I breastfeeding? Then I was doing something wrong. Was I formula feeding? Then I was doing something wrong. Stay at home mom? Working mom? Work at home mom? Step mom, biological mom, foster mom, adoptive mom? Someone somewhere was always telling me that I was wrong.
So I did the only logical thing. I believed them all. Whatever decision I made, I would second guess myself because I had convinced myself that surely they all knew better. To trust my own instincts just seemed so… arrogant.
It has been five years since those earliest days. In some ways, I have come far, in others, not so much. But what I have learned — if I let myself believe all the judgments, I will go absolutely mad.
It’s hard to know where to draw the line between being open minded and being overly susceptible to the criticism of others. I’m not too good at drawing lines.
But what I am slowly starting to realize is that there are billions of different ways to live this life. We are aided by our own strengths and blessings and talents, and we are also limited by our weaknesses and misfortunes and faults. All we really can do is take what we are, where we are, and what we have been given and make the best of it all.
Ten hundred years from now, we will all be looking back on this life from the other side, and we’ll see the myriad choices we have made and where they landed us in the end. And the best that any of us will ever be able to say is that we did it our way. The best any of us can do is own our choices and the consequences for them. We can be grateful when we get it right and remorseful when we get it wrong, but always we must be able to say that we were who we thought was best.
And much sooner than ten hundred years from now, our children will look back on their childhood, and they’ll have questions and opinions about this time. And again, all we can say is that we did it our way. We made our choices. We lived by our values. We did by them the best we could.
And in this messy and crazy and complicated world, the best any of us can be is who we are.
Let’s own it.
And of course, I now have this song stuck in my head.
http://youtu.be/kF-rtkrcQRg
Have a great weekend!
Totally, totally true. Every book tells you a different thing; you can’t possibly follow them all! I wrote a similar post at some point. Glad you figured it out. 🙂
Can I just give you a big hug and a smooshy kiss? Because we had a failed attempted adoption of a teen from the foster system, and when she first moved in with us (and before then) I was reading tons of books and reading blogs and e-mail groups, just like you did. Then add a team of social workers who all told me that everything I was doing was wrong while disagreeing with each other.
And now I’ve found the shrink that we should’ve been seeing all along and she’s asked me why I didn’t just trust my instincts with the kid. Um, because trauma kids are different? And because that’s what people do these days–criticize each others’ parenting and/or feel completely inadequate.
Why do we always judge ourselves by our worst and others by their best? It’s like comparing wholesale to retail. But we all do it! You are exactly right. We need to be philosophical. I love the idea of ‘I did it my way’. Okay, now that song’s stuck in my head too!