Good Enough Mother
A Self-Reflection Vortex
I have never been content with good enough. Anything less than perfection weighs on me, settles in, and sticks around — a reminder of my mediocrity. I never forget the flub-ups, those times when the only response I can muster is, why did I do/say/think that? Every single moment I wish I could take back is vivid, playing on a loop in the background of my day-to-day.
What can I say? My ability to relive the past is often a curse. And what is left to do but to write?
The places my pen takes me can be dangerous — dangerous because intense moments of clarity are frightening, and I’ve seemed to stumble onto a whole mountain of those gems as of late.
The most recent of which is that I’ve been a living contradiction of myself, on the one hand, hiding from conflict and tension until I can’t take it anymore and then, on the other, bursting suddenly out, demanding to be heard, demanding to be seen and demanding respect. A reactionary existence that has been chaotic, to say the least.
I’m tempted to say I’ve been a coward, but I know that is disingenuous because I only need to pause for a second to remember all of the very un-cowardly actions in my life. So, I choose to approach this moment of self-reflection from another angle, one that acknowledges my cowardice while at the same time being cognizant of the uncanny and undeniable journey I’ve taken into the depths of self to build, brick by brick, the structure of dependability and confidence that would allow me to straighten my spine, square my shoulders, hold my head high, and claim space, all drawn from the well of my own determination and strength.
That should be enough, right?
When I look back on the long journey out of my past and see how far I’ve come, it should be enough; I should feel proud; I should know that I’ve accomplished something remarkable.
But I don’t, and it isn’t.
I can’t feel proud, and it isn’t enough. Because in this particular moment of clarity, all I can see is how I’ve fallen woefully short. No matter the growth, no matter the progress, I’ve not been the mother I set out to be. In fact, I ended up tangled in many of the traps I vowed to avoid. The pieces are falling into place so perfectly, junctures are coming into focus, and correlations that baffled me when they first appeared are all beginning to make sense. And I can see my cowardice at the center of them all; those moments are an integral part of my kids’ formative selves, and I can never undo that.
And that makes me want to break something — or many somethings. And with no rage room at the ready, all I can do is sit here and write.
My kids are nearly grown and are moving out and away in leaps and bounds. So, of course, I’ve begun to contemplate how they will remember me. And I’m afraid that the image of me that will settle into those recollections is one of a woman who stepped down, who stood aside, who acquiesced and deferred.
It’s no wonder, I think to myself, that my daughter wants to be nothing like me, and my son, while he does lean on me and solicit my advice more readily, just as easily dismisses me or, at times, it seems, holds me as something delicate and fragile.
Bear with me. I’m not vortexing into a bottomless abyss of self-loathing, I promise. On the contrary. Often, the darkest thoughts lead to the most vivid epiphanies.
I recoil viciously from the idea that my kids would ever have to hold me, protect me, or, in any way, coddle me. I have always held fiercely to the fact that it is my job to be their rock, their sun, their anchor, their unmoving earth. After all, they didn’t ask to be born; I made that decision for them, and I owe them, not the other way around.
And I’m not delusional. I know I have been those things for them countless times, but that doesn’t matter unless it’s been during the moments that really count, the formative moments that chart trajectories — those are the ones that are haunting me now. Because in spite of all of the instances when I trusted my instincts and mamma bear-ed my way through tense and difficult situations on their behalf, those aren’t the ones they remember. And it took my daughter tearfully asking this fall, “Why didn’t you stand up for me?” for all of the other ones to come tumbling into focus.
It wasn’t a monumental conversation, at least not for me, but for her, it apparently was — and the courage it took for her to voice her distaste for sports and desire to fill that time at school with some other activity (she has since exchanged field hockey for yoga) was enough for her to feel left out in the cold as I let the conversation play out and chose not to give voice my to dissent or support.
And now the lens is clear, the shutter has clicked, and all of those times I shut up are lined up accusingly in my mental photo album.
All of the times I doubted myself and deferred to an opinion that ruffled my instincts because I dismissed those instincts as fear and convinced myself that I couldn’t possibly know better than, well, almost everyone around me. All of the times I kept my mouth shut, convinced that peace was healthier than conflict. All of those pivotal decisions I chose not to take because, for most of my adult life, even after becoming a mother, I really did believe that mostly everyone else knew better than me — distortions I carried with me from my formative years.
I am under no illusion that it does any good to berate myself at this point, and I do know that I’ve come a very long way on my own power from where I started. I know that I have been excruciatingly conscious from the minute I held those tiny humans in my arms to be the kind of mother they could be proud of, the kind of matriarch they and generations to come could count on. But, instead, I feel like I fell woefully short in the precise instants that mattered. That I flailed, and I survived, and yes, cherished them, but did I give them something they could believe in? Did I fill a well with wisdom that they can dip into when they need it? Or did I produce another generation that is going to have to dig their own damn well and fill it with their own bits of wisdom gathered through trial and error?
I don’t know how to navigate these feelings of failure. I gave myself wholly to being the kind of mother that, it turns out, I was not.
What’s done is done. That’s the saying, right?
A crappy saying, in my opinion. It indicates a finality, an un-moveability.
And as I spin a bit in just a hint of a vortex, I can almost convince myself that my kids’ selves have formed around those times when I fell short.
Never have I known regret so completely or acutely.
I know now that conflict is necessary. Conflict brings things into the light that need to be seen — and creates space for issues that need to be resolved. Conflict doesn’t have to be ugly; it can be navigated with respect and tact and create the opportunity for all parties to emerge transformed.
I know that now. I didn’t know that before.
Learning and growth take place over a lifetime. Nothing is set in stone. People can and do change — if they really want to.
I’ve so often been right in retrospect. I’m sick of that. I’m sick of should haves. I’m sick of saying I knew it. I want to act in real-time, confident that my instincts are valid and on point, conflict be damned.
In the past, not good enough would have made me shrink and crumble; now, somehow, it makes me roar.
