I’M NOT THAT PARENT
I’m not the parent whose kid will turn up for gymnastics class with hair neat, clothes unstained, every piece tucked together just right …
I’m not the parent who will be on time, or remember the book to check off attendance, or stand around politely chatting with the other Mums before and afterwards, “I know-ing” about the state of the world and the weather …
I’m not the parent whose child stands orderly in line with the others, doing exactly what they’re told and exactly how they’re told to do it, or stopping right away when told to stop whacking another one on the butt …
I’m not the parent who sends her daughter off with perfectly braided hair, school lunch presented like it’s ready to be photographed for a Mummy blog, letters or forms all filled out neatly and returned with out also being shredded half to pieces and crumpled into a ball …
I’m not the parent who even remembers to WASH her kids half the time, is the truth of the matter!
A good chunk of the time I despair at my own inability to be organised just with the BASICS of this whole being a Mummy thing. I feel like even if I managed to put in the apparent time and military-like scheduling required to get it all together, I actually don’t think I’m CAPABLE of doing it the way the other Mums do.
Even my most carefully orchestrated braids take off at some point in their own random direction.
It took me an entire year of my daughter being in school before it occurred to me to wonder if homework was still a THING … and had she ever gotten any?!
So no –
I’m not that parent.
I’m not the neat one.
I’m not the one who remembers shit unless it’s put into my calendar in 14 different ways, including some sort of in person reminder at the last minute.
I’m not the one who will even think of the fact that school clothes need to be washed in order to be worn again … in theory.
I’m not the one who DOES it like the other Mums.
And if I wanted to let all this stuff get to me I suppose I would.
But instead, here is what I’ve chosen to do, on this journey of in some way leading and guiding these little ones whose lives I’ve been for now entrusted with:
I am the parent who will roll directly into the sand or the mud or the river or the sea with my kids.
I am the one who will put her phone down and watch while they take their class, not just because they get excited to see me watching (insist on it actually!), but also because when you lean INTO it it is fascinating to observe just how quickly they learn, absorb, apply.
I am the one who will let them dye their hair even if it’s against what all the other kids or the school have to say about it.
I am the Mum who will teach my kids that getting the top grades, if it’s something you want, is just about your beliefs and what you CHOOSE for yourself … and then I’ll teach them the ‘how’ of THAT. But no, I sure as heck aren’t going to sit down and do homework.
I am the one who will say ‘okay’ when my daughter suggests we leave the country for a month and go to Hawaii when there’s a huge traffic-nightmare-inducing event happening in our neighbourhood.
I am the one who will show them how to make money online just by playing and having fun.
I am the Mum who will let my son grow his hair down to his butt if that’s what he wants … although I MIGHT insist he has it washed once every month or two before it goes full dreadlock
I am the one who will do my very best to keep them wild, create, free, and tapped in to who they really ARE, what they want, and what it is their souls came here to do.
When I was pregnant with my first child, I thought I would do it all perfectly –
No sugar, no gluten no exposure to the dastardly ways of the normal world.
Now … it’s a mess of worlds colliding together. We eat meat and vegetables for breakfast half the time, but I’ll just as easily get them French toast with syrup another day … in fact that’s exactly what we did today.
I’ll give a stern talking to about not quitting an extracurricular class … but have a serious conversation with their Dad about whether we actually should keep going with school at all.
I’ll require certain boundaries and rules to be followed … but teach them to question EVERYTHING the system or indeed anyone tells them.
I’ll directly argue against things they are taught by other adults in their lives, and explain why … but then sometimes my OWN fear of fitting in will come out to play and I’ll find myself hushing their natural exuberance in a public place.
I have no consistency.
There’s no method to my madness.
I have no idea what’s next.
And I’m quite certain I will NEVER nail the ‘always neat and polished thing’ (nor want to).
The truth is I’m just making it up as I go!
Sometimes that scares me –
I wonder if I’m a good Mum.
I wonder if I’m preparing them for life properly.
I wonder at so many things I perhaps should or COULD do.
ANd I despair at some of the things which come out of their mouths … or mine.
But here is what I do take heart in:
As best as I can, every day, same as in business and in every area of my life, I do what I’m guided to do from within.
I see the way the world demonstrates it, I consider it even at times, and then once again I find that in the end, the answers are ALWAYS to be found from turning in, tuning in, and asking –
“Yes, but what do I know is right for US?”
I might listen to how others say it has to be –
I might even smile, and nod my head politely –
But when all is said and done, being a Mum can’t really be any different from ANY other thing I do, which is to say –
Do whate I damn well want anyway.
The thing we have to remember, as parent, is that there are NO absolutes. There are ZERO finite ways that are universally correct. We have to figure it out ourselves. We GET to make it up as we go, but also we HAVE to.
It’s a responsibility.
It’s scary.
And we may well spend our entire lives questioning certain things.
It’s about realising that that’s okay … it’s allowed … it’s actually the ONLY way … and there is NO way that we’re ever going to look back and think “thank God I did what everybody told me, made sure my kisd fit in, taught them how to conform”.
So when you find yourself rolling your eyes at yourself –
Bemoaning the fact that everything is always SO all over the place –
Or feeling the pain of your child as they battle between their own will and their natural desire to be accepted –
Stop.
Take heart.
Tune IN.
And remember –
Intuition ALWAYS knows the way.
You were born with the blueprint for this.
It doesn’t matter what a SINGLE other person is doing, or saying.
Here is what matters, I believe –
Did you stare into their eyes?
Did you look into their soul?
Did you see the wonder they were born with?
And did you allow it to grow, or did you teach it that it must go.
It’s the same for us too, actually.
The whole damn point is to let your soul fly.
And show them how to free theirs.
That’s the kind of parent I want to be.
It’s still mayhem and screaming half the time.
And I go against even my OWN rules for flow just as often.
I think the rest of the point, though, is to at some point realise – nobody ever said that flow meant order.
Chaos breeds creativity, and flow comes FROM the mess.
And that perhaps –
Is the point of all of it.
That’s all …