Care Bears Can Do Hard Things

A couple of weeks ago, my oldest was having one of those teenage girl moments where she needed to unload on me about all the things she hates about her life.

I'm a mom.  I can take it.  I get that little girls, with all their hormones and mood swings and limited perspectives sometimes just hate their lives.  As she rattled off her list of grievances at 6:30 a.m on a Monday morning, I started feeling very uncomfortable with the conversation.  I was very concerned about all the negativity she seemed to be channeling.  I let her finish getting things off her chest, then proceeded to try and impart of my motherly wisdom regarding stuff like positive thoughts, being grateful for what we have, how attitudes affect outcomes, yadda yadda yadda.

And then ... BAM!

I got hit with a different kind of uncomfortable feeling.  This time, it was the kind that comes in the form of a loud voice that screams mean, hateful things in your ears:  "Who are YOU to be giving this advice?  Where do you think this attitude of hers is coming from?  You need to learn to take your own advice, lady."

Ouchie.

This subject weighed heavily on my mind for the rest of the day.  I'd had many a passing thought over the past months about my sarcastic tendencies and how they affect my overall psyche, but more specifically how those tendencies may be hindering my efforts to make positive changes to my body.  But when I see my sweet little girl struggling because of her own negativity, and realize that I'm the biggest influence in her life, it's time to have more than just the occasional passing thought about it.  It's time to DO something.

That night, we gathered for our family night and, using the scriptures and a WHOLE LOTTA quotes about being positive, I tried to help my little family see why it's so important to carry a good attitude with us in all the things we face every day, and how doing so just makes everything easier and better.  This lesson was for me more than anyone else in that room. The discussion went well, and when it was over, I went around the house with all of those positive quotes I'd printed out and stuck them on the walls in various places all over our home so that we would have constant reminders everywhere we go.  Bathroom mirrors, hallways, family room, kitchen cabinets, everywhere. Our home is now filled with happy thoughts everywhere you turn - sort of like a miniature Disneyland minus the awesome rides and parades and churros.

My daughter's momentary meltdown helped me to see that I have a load of emotional crap I need to deal with and that all the nutritious food and fat-melting workouts in the world aren't going to do a thing for me until I get out of my own way.  I've been very conscious these last couple of weeks about the thoughts I entertain and I've noticed just how much I really do focus on negative garbage.  I have a lot of work to do.

And then, this morning ...

I visited a Facebook friend's page to discover that he and I were no longer "friends."  I sent him a message asking about it, and he informed me that he had to unfriend me because, while he loved my humorous posts, my everyday life seemed to be mixed with too much negativity.

Ouchie.

I cried.  Not because I thought his words were mean-spirited or intentionally hurtful, but because he was right.  I've known it for a while, but to hear it from another human is quite the poke in the eye.

I learned to use sarcasm at a very young age as a self defense mechanism.  I've been the fat kid for as long as I can remember, which made me the target for every bully from elementary to junior high to high school ... and even beyond.  I think I subconsciously figured out that if I showed people my fangs first (in the form of snark), they'd think twice about messing with me.  It worked, sorta.  My sarcasm has been my armor.  My preemptive strike.

Most people may think that being more positive is a really simple thing to do - something you can just decide to do and do it.  But for me, changing my attitude means changing who I've always been.  Who I've always been is someone who, if I do say so myself, a lot of people like.  I know not everyone loves and appreciates sarcasm the way that I do, but I know there are people who love that about me.  I'm afraid that if I shed that, I'll somehow lose my identity and maybe even lose what makes me likable to the people who like me.  Since this blog is all about finding courage, let me just say that that notion scares the dog snot out of me.

When I try to sit down and write positive thoughts or affirmations, I'm almost tempted to mock myself for doing it.  "What are you, some kind of unicorn-riding, rainbow-sliding, cotton candy-eating Care Bear?"  That's how foreign this is to me.

Yet, I know this needs to happen.  My thought process has to change.  I have to keep repeating and start believing all those warm and fuzzy little quotes I've put up around my house:

I can do hard things.
You believe what you tell yourself.
You can't live a positive life with a negative mind.
The only disability in life is a bad attitude. 
Being happy is good for my health.
I can and I will.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.

Is it bad that that last one with the snark is my favorite?

I'm a work in progress, people.  A work in progress.

Thoughts From an Imperfect Mother

While I've dedicated this blog to chronicling my weight loss efforts (or lack thereof?), there's something on my mind that I feel is worthy of a momentary subject change.  And since I know that most of those who follow this blog are moms, it seems relevant and hopefully even useful.

Something’s bothering the mother in me.  I’m a little concerned about my fellow mommies.  In my Pinterest browsing earlier today, I ran across a few blog titles that did not sit well with me.  A few examples:

5 Things You Should Never Say to Your Kids

10 Ways to Be a Better Mom Every Day
Most Common Mom Mistakes

99 Reasons You Suck as a Parent

I may have made that last one up for the purpose of exaggerating my point.

The questions that pop into my brain as I see more and more of these types of “informative” and “helpful” articles are, “Who ARE these people?” and “Why do we so willingly believe that they know more than we do about the best way to raise our own children?”  I find many of these parenting advice posts to be condescending to me as a mother and insulting to me as a semi-intelligent human.

Bad parenting?  Not for me to say.

We all have our own ideas about how children should be raised.  I certainly don't fault anyone for putting those ideas in writing and sharing them with others, especially since that's pretty much what I'm doing by writing this post.  My bigger concern is that we seem to be almost desperately seeking out these types of posts and … gasp … pinning them.  Sharing them.  Relying on them.  Allowing them to feed on our psyches like little joy-sucking leaches.   It's as if we're losing all faith in our own abilities to love and nurture our children.

I want moms to stop doubting themselves.  I want them to trust that inner voice – the one that only we moms hear - that speaks to them from moment to moment, from morning ‘til night, day in and day out.  I want them to believe that the immense love they feel for their children will guide them in the decisions that really matter, because nobody on this Earth knows the hearts and minds of their little ones the way they do.  I want them to quit stressing over saying the wrong things and just be grateful that their voices, even when they say the wrong things (and they will sometimes) are the ones their children want to hear first thing every morning and last thing at night.  I want them to stop focusing on the ways they fall short as mothers (and they will sometimes) and start focusing on the small joys they bring to their childrens’ lives each day just by clocking in.

Want to know how to be a better mom?  Get on your knees and ask the Lord.  Follow His example.  Listen to His promptings. Then ask your KIDS what they need from you.  That blogger chick who lives four states away, who has never met you or your children, doesn’t know the first thing about what YOU can do to be a better mom to them. Their little souls were entrusted to YOU for a reason.  They are yours to know and to love and to cherish and yes, even to screw up a little. I guarantee you that if you say one of those dreaded “5 things” from that list up there, your kids will be OK.  They’ll recover.  They’ll still love you.  They won’t grow up to be ax murderers or guests on Jerry Springer. 

I personally didn’t bother to click on that silly pin and follow the link.  Why?  What good will it do?  Will I most likely end up letting one of those five things slip at some point, even if I DO read the article and become more enlightened?  Yep.  And then what?  With my newly-acquired enlightenment about what I'm doing wrong, I’ll feel guilty about it until I’m losing sleep and signing us all up for therapy to undo the damage I’ve done to my poor little future felons.   I don’t need that extra guilt-induced stress in my life.   I generate enough of that on my own without any help from complete strangers, thankyouverymuch.

Each of us has all the tools we need to be “better” moms every day.  No blog post or list is going to make our kids feel more loved or needed or special than we already know how to do on our own.  A mother's love for her children transcends every book, every magazine article, every how-to tutorial she can ever read during her career as a parent.

There’s a little voice that is lovingly whispering to you that your children are blessed to have you, but it’s being drowned out by a know-it-all world that screams at you from all sides:  “Your best is not enough. You can be doing more.  You are going to ruin your kids.”  But, as the saying goes, your children don’t need you to be perfect.  They just need YOU.  Gloriously, marvelously, laughably imperfect YOU.

You’re the only mom they’ve got.  And yes, that’s a good thing, despite what Suzy the Expert Mom Blogger from Des Moines says to the contrary.