On Trying Not to See Parenting as Hard

I told you before that I think parenting is hard.

It’s the one thing I’ve worked hardest at without measurable success. I know my kids are awesome and stuff but I won’t really know what grade I got on this 18 year research project for a while yet. This kind of delayed resolution doesn’t sit well with me.

My fellow blogger, Christine recently wrote a piece entitled, What Is the Hardest Thing About Being a Solo, Single Mom? where she presented her challenges while single and married moms offered theirs in the comments below.

In reading Christine’s piece and the subsequent comments, I was reminded of a piece I wrote a while back, All Moms Have it Hard. Does it Matter Who has it the Hardest?

While I stand by my position that degrees of parental challenge shouldn’t fuel the mommy wars, I’ve come to the realization that my own thinking about motherhood has become my worst enemy.

There are moms (single, married, divorced, rich, poor, bilingual, gay, straight, Republican, Democrat, thinner, fatter, prettier, nicer, more religious, less religious, etc.) that have it harder than I do.

There are also those same moms who have it easier than I do.

And then there are those supposed perfect families that have it harder than all of us combined.

The point is, no matter how “hard” or “easy” another mom has it, we’ll never really know. We’ll always be on the outside looking in and focusing on what they have that we don’t, not fully knowing the whole story.

I’m tired of beating myself up trying to get a good grade in parenting. There’s no one-size-fits-all to any parenting dynamic. I’d rather spend my time focusing on what motherhood has provided rather than taken away.

Take a look at the ways I’m focusing on the blessings of motherhood in spite of the challenges right here.