Sometimes, I wonder if this is just how it’s meant to be. Dream mothers don’t exist

To My Dearest Children,

AS I raise you, I’m way too aware of the impact I have on your future. This is because I’m a therapist. Most of my day I meet with adults who talk about their childhood wounds. I help them heal the wounded child living within them.

This is the work I’ve done for myself and yearn to help my clients succeed in.  I know what it means to create and develop securely attached children, and I help people’s inner children to attach in healthy ways, something their brains couldn’t enable them to do without blaming their parents, which achieves the opposite of true healing. In my office, I’m present, calm, and compassionate (most of the time).

Then I come home and start my day with you, my darling children. I enter the house with all the knowledge of what it takes to make you feel safe. I know what my clients told me hurt. I hear about the pain of being unseen, unimportant, not heard, not held, and the long-lasting imprint this leaves on the heart.

I want nothing more than to give you so much love and spare you from suffering all those wounds. Yet day in and day out, I struggle to implement all that I know to be true.

Some days, it’s because I’m busy or tired.

Other days, it’s because you’re beyond grumpy and lash out and make yourself very difficult to love. Often, you take out your anger from school on me. Other days, you’re preoccupied and happy, and I want to savor the quiet.

Sometimes, one of you has been so poorly behaved, it zaps me of energy for the rest of you. Sometimes, your tatty needs me, or my mom wants my attention, or a friend is in crisis. There’s always something, kids!

And night after night, as I reflect on my day, I think about how deeply I want you to grow up without a hole that needs to be filled with what I couldn’t give you.

What makes this so poignant is that I hold the awareness today! Most of my clients’ parents didn’t know any better. But I know. That stings. I tell myself that I know what you need; to look back in 20 years’ time and feel full. And yet, days come and days go, and I don’t seem to be able to fully control your inner security. I can’t provide you with the safety deep within that every human being needs. I don’t meet my own standards of the dream mom all my clients dream of.

Sometimes, I wonder if this is just how it’s meant to be. Dream mothers don’t exist.

Other times, I dream that I’m doing it right. Yet life seems to be teaching me that every human has his or her own journey to traverse, and parents can’t take that away. Pain is part of life. Pain will help you grow.

Writing this soothes me. It soothes me to recall how hard I am trying.  Maybe one day, when you’re older, you can look back and see written proof of how hard I tried (at least I can). Maybe just that knowledge of my deep care and desire to be a good mother will be a helpful resource for your own journey. Maybe just having a mother who consciously and consistently tries to be a solid mother will be enough of a concrete ground for you to develop stability from.

Remember, I love you!

Mommy

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 841)