Parenting

Sometimes I feel so inadequate as a parent, a mom.....I'm afraid I'm not doing the right thing for my kids.... I feel like they have already struggled so much in their short lives.....first through the abuse, then with the uncertainty of their future and finally the adjustment home, to us.  I struggle and try daily to be a better parent, to be more patient, more understanding, more loving and a better teacher.  My friend and neighbour is the one who normally gets to hear my worries and she sent me an article today.....here is the part that got to me the most....

If you are a parent of small children, you know that there are moments of spectacular delight, and you can’t believe you get to be around these little people. But let me be the one who says the following things out loud:

You are not a terrible parent if you can’t figure out a way for your children to eat as healthy as your friend’s children do. She’s obviously using a bizarre and probably illegal form of hypnotism.

You are not a terrible parent if you yell at your kids sometimes. You have little dictators living in your house. If someone else talked to you like that, they’d be put in prison.

You are not a terrible parent if you can’t figure out how to calmly give them appropriate consequences in real time for every single act of terrorism that they so creatively devise.

You are not a terrible parent if you’d rather be at work.

You are not a terrible parent if you just can’t wait for them to go to bed.

You are not a terrible parent if the sound of their voices sometimes makes you want to drink and never stop.

You’re not a terrible parent.

You’re an actual parent with limits. You cannot do it all. We all need to admit that one of the casualties specific to our information saturated culture is that we have sky-scraper standards for parenting, where we feel like we’re failing horribly if we feed our children chicken nuggets and we let them watch TV in the morning.

I know it's the opinion of one person but somehow it made me feel better.....I'm not struggling alone and I am human