No matter what I do each day I will never stop being a mom. Parenting doesn't end at the end of the day or begin with each time that I wake up in the morning. It doesn't matter if it's a day on Wall Street, back on on a farm, going to school, or spending time with friends. Aside from the normal mom places to go and things to do with your children, I am now and forever a mom.
Parenting does change your life forever but it didn't mean that I had to give up the things that are important to me. There's no doubt about it when I say my children always came first. Being a parent will always be my number one priority.
Being a parent means balancing self-doubt with self-trust. I think about my experience when I was a first time parent. I felt like I lacked the typical parental instincts that I assumed people who grew up dreaming they want to be parents would have. My days were filled with anxiety and still are to a degree, sometimes more than ever especially when you are dealing with a child that had health issues.
The self-doubt is useful when it comes to recognizing that I need to get information or seek help/advice from professionals equipped to handle pediatric issues. At the same time, I learned to trust my observations of my child and what he may need, and I trusted my "parental instinct" when I felt something was wrong.
Being a parent means balancing self-preservation and self-giving. I originally wrote these as balancing selfishness with selflessness. The selfish part comes from self-preservation so that I can continue being an effective parent. If I didn't take care of myself, even if taking care of myself feels selfish at times, then I won't be able to stay selfless for very long. I don't mean that in a bad way at all, it just means that my children would always be number one but if I had to put someone else aside to deal with my children and what was best for my family than it might seem selfish to that person. If it meant that I couldn't go out to hang out with friends to make sure that my health was a priority to take care of my children than sometimes they would think that I was being selfish and not part of the group.
Being a parent means balancing guidance with teaching. I agree with the saying that parents are their children's first teachers, but there's a balance of giving a child enough space to learn and discover for themselves. If you spoon-feed all the answers to a child, then there is little incentive for a child to learn how to come up with an answer. Now I'm more aware of a need to pull back and offer help that may enable my child to complete a task himself, rather than teaching him how to do it, or worse, doing it myself. I will always be a teacher to some degree but I also think that it's important to let them do for themselves. My daughter loves to bake cookies. I help her with most of it and take care of the hard things for her like regulating the oven temperature. I stand with her, spend time with her, guide her, but she enjoys pouring in the ingredients and stirring the mix. It's more like a collaborative team effort. She has the benefits of a teacher but also learns the skills of being independent at the same time and also feels self-worth when she knows that she did it and not mommy.
Being a parent means balancing boundaries with freedom. Boundaries keep children safe and also provide a structure of "being" that can be helpful as a child grows. There are cases when a child is not helped by a parent who gives so much freedom in the name of "wanting to be my child's best friend." At the same time, I'd do more harm if boundaries and rules become so numerous that they disable and imprison the natural desire/instinct of a child to become independent and self-reliant.
Being a parent is more than just a title. We are teachers, protectors, providers, and so much more. It never ends, but it is a rewarding experience that nothing could ever replace.
