Dear Mom,

Did you ever contemplate your success as a parent? As of a week ago, I would have said it’s my biggest strength. Being a mom, since the very beginning, has been the one part of my life where I feel like I’m not entirely screwing up.

It starts with very low expectations. Practically nonexistent. When I was still in grad school, I used to say I never wanted to have kids. It simply wasn’t in my plan. Maybe it was that I had some toxic relationships and never saw myself procreating with the guys in my life. Maybe it was more selfish, that I didn’t want to give my body to another human in that way. Ultimately, I just don’t think I liked kids that much. I never had baby fever. I thought babies were annoying. Still do for the most part.

When Jeremy and I were getting closer to our wedding, that was the first time I fell in love with the idea of a family. I wanted to have kids. 

Since I had very little expectations as to how the whole process would go, including pregnancy and childbirth, I’ve been able to have a pretty positive perspective. I couldn’t possibly make any massive mistakes while raising my babies because anything was better than I’d planned. I had no blueprint. Keeping them breathing was all I cared about. And having a ‘go with the flow’ attitude has proved to be helpful. 

However, there is this one thing that has started to become an issue. It wasn’t an issue when the kids were really little. Wasn’t an issue when they were learning to walk. Learning their alphabet. Learning to share. Back then they were picking up on new experiences effortlessly. 

Now that things are more challenging, now that they aren’t always the best at everything they try, I’ve started to feel a sense of disappointment when they aren’t perfect. I know. I know. Not ideal. It’s a strange sensation for me. I don’t even care about perfection for myself. Obviously, I am a self-sabotage expert and have always felt most comfortable when falling short. Now, I know I don’t want my kids to learn the art of self-sabotage, but I also don’t want them to feel the pressure to be perfectionists. I definitely don’t want them to feel like I’m unhappy with them if they’re not perfect. I don’t even care. I know deep down I only want them to be happy. So, what is going on with me? Why am I feeling this way?

I’ll give you an example. And yes, I feel a bit ashamed about it.

Last week was the school talent show. Scotland learned a dance for her performance. For weeks she watched a video on YouTube and memorized each move. Leading up to the big show, she stopped practicing with the video. She kept reminding me that she knew the dance. And, at the end of the day, she didn’t care if it changed from the original source material. She’d make it her own and she’d be fine. There were a lot of ‘moms’ thrown around with that super drawn out ‘ah’ sound. So, I left it alone. She was right. This was her dance. She could make it her own. I was going to do my job and give her space.

The day of the show, hours earlier, she was in a dance performance for her after school hip hop class. She did a dance to Everybody by the Backstreet Boys. Twice. 

I asked her to practice her dance for the talent show. She refused. “I’m fine, mAaaaahm.”

I let it go.

The night of the talent show. It’s her turn. She gets on the stage. The song starts. She starts to do her dance from her hip hop recital instead. It takes her a few seconds to realize it but, ultimately, she recovers, and no one notices.

Me? I noticed. And I was super annoyed. I barely slept that night as I thought about how much better her performance would have been if she hadn’t messed up the beginning. Why? Why did I care so much? She is seven years old, and this was an elementary school talent show. Where NO ONE noticed her mistake besides me. She didn’t care. She wasn’t disappointed. She felt on top of the world. 

As I’ve now been thinking about this for days, not her performance, but my reaction, I’ve been trying to figure out why I reacted this way. Why I cared so much.

For one thing, her number was cut down to 58 seconds. It didn’t give her a lot of room for error. I think I was pissed at the time because a lot of the other kids got longer. Most got at least 30 seconds more. Somehow, that bothered me. But also, why? Why did I care at all? Once again, she didn’t.

The other part is the fact that I had encouraged her, probably too often, to practice and she refused to listen. The line, ‘I told you so’ actually popped into my head at one point. Fortunately, I kept that to myself. 

Is it possible that I actually do care about my kids being perfect? If so, this is a new concept to me.

Like I said, I never felt this way while they were in their early developmental stages. Although, both kids were super easy babies and toddlers. Both crawled when they were supposed to. Both were walking by eleven months. Both were practically swimming out of the womb. 

Things for Scotland in particular have always come easy. At five-years-old, she taught herself to read. The same year she blew away the crowd at her first ever drum recital, an instrument she was a natural at from the beginning. She’s strong at all sports she has tried. A great dancer. Definitely has your rhythm. She can draw, sing, do front and back flips into the pool. Oozes with confidence and a healthy self-esteem.

I will say, this year has been tough on her. Scotland started to show a tendency to feel bad if she wasn’t instantly good at something. She’s shown glimpses of this before, but it’s gotten worse this year. If she tries a new activity, a sport or a craft or something that she isn’t amazing at from the start, she will get frustrated and want to give up. And I can say with absolute certainty that I don’t like this for her. I don’t want her to feel this way. I want her to be happy with her attempt. To understand that it’s all about progress not perfection. That it’s all a learning process. I say this to her. Often. I remind her to not be so hard on herself. To let things go.

And she has grown a lot these last few months. At first, I thought she was giving up in a sense. She has actually said, regarding schoolwork not being perfect, “I’m not going to get 100% anyway, so who cares.” I really thought it was my girl self-sabotaging herself. To lower her expectations so she doesn’t feel so bad when she gets an imperfect score. But that was me projecting. What I’ve since learned is that she is allowing herself to lighten up. She has decided that doing her very best is enough. If it doesn’t come across that way to everyone else, that’s ok. She tried and she gave it her all. That’s all that matters to her.

She doesn’t care about being perfect.

Until recently, I would have said the same thing. I don’t care about her finishing on top. I only want her to have fun and enjoy the journey. But I can’t shake this feeling. This feeling that I want her to WIN. To win it all. To be the best. The highest achiever. And I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

Could it be that this is my way of living vicariously through my kids? Like those moms who never made it in dance or acting so now they become extreme Momagers and push their kids in a ridiculous way to succeed where they couldn’t? Am I pushing my daughter to be perfect because I fell short in putting effort into myself? That I want her to taste the glory I never even sought out?

I think ultimately what I’m battling here is my inability to let things go. I may not be a perfectionist, but I have been known to harp on my mistakes. To focus nonstop on the moments when things go slightly wrong. Maybe not the big moments, definitely not the moments out of my control, but I do obsess over the small moments when I could have done something better. So maybe I do understand the drive to be perfect and maybe I’m starting to obsess over my kids’ tiny mistakes on top of my own.

What I should be focusing on here, instead of her mistake, is her recovery. The very fact that my seven-year-old daughter could so quickly recover, while on stage in front of 200 people, and have no one notice, should be more than enough for me. I should be able to look at her performance and her stage presence and confidence as a total win. I shouldn’t look at anything as being wrong with it. Yet, I do. And it brings me great shame.

Perhaps that’s a good thing. To feel ashamed of my reaction. Isn’t calling attention to it the first step? Maybe the fact that I am worked up about my reaction means that I have the ability to overcome it. To recover from my own mistake. And all the mistakes to come. 

I’ve been thinking about last year’s talent show as a comparison. Scotland played the drums. The song started and the lyrics were missing which threw her off. She managed to recover, and I was so proud. She overcame a mistake that was completely out of her control.

Maybe that’s it. The difference. This year her mistake was purely hers. It wasn’t because of the song being wrong or the tech glitching. It was only her error. So, in a sense it was very much in her control. But aren’t these the most important moments? Shouldn’t I be more focused on teaching them to let go when they are in control of their mistakes? Aren’t the moments when we cause our own mistakes the hardest to overcome?

Plus, these moments are going to only get bigger as they get older. Today it’s a low-pressure elementary school talent show. One day it’ll be a college application or a big job interview. They need to know that I’ll be there to lift them up when they inevitably fail. Because no matter how much they practice and how much they push there will be failures. Life is a series of missteps full of falling short and coming second or last. Life isn’t perfect. Life is messy. So, so messy. And they will not get through it if I’m whispering in their ears at this early stage that perfection is the goal. They never need to hear that from their mom. They need to know I am proud of them for all of their efforts. They need to know I will love them regardless of their accomplishments or lack of. I will support them through success as well as failure. And, most importantly, I need to believe it. I need to fully accept them during their darkest moments. I know how detrimental it is to be loved despite shortcomings. I know how that feels. How easy it is to spiral from there. To sink into a dark hole of shame. In my opinion, there is no room for despite within unconditional love. I will love them because of their bad moments just like I will love them because of the good ones. I will love them equally no matter what and that’s what they need to know. That’s how they should interpret my reactions to their mistakes, that no matter what, I’ll be here to guide them and to support them. And in order to succeed in my role as their parent I need to not attempt perfection myself. There is no perfect parent. No perfect mom. I will make mistakes. It’s how I react to mine and to theirs that matters most. 

Going forward, my goal is to pay much more attention to the process. Focus on the work and not so much on the outcome. Scotland worked so hard on that dance. It was truly amazing to watch her study and learn all by herself. Never asking for help. And I should tell her that. I should tell her how proud I am of her hard work and her dedication. She should know that I am proud and will be proud of her. No matter what. 

I love you, Mom.

Love,

Rachel