Welcome to another addition of FWIWW! Where bloggers and blog readers GET REAL!
I found this submission in my inbox yesterday. Please, if you have any thoughts to share with this reader would you post them in comments? It sounds like she's struggling.
She writes:
"Our kids- they can be a source of great joy, frustration, and love. How do you not take it personal when they make bad choices? Feel like you have failed them somewhere? It feels like when my children make bad choices, that it is a direct reflection of my mistakes as a mother. It is such a great responsiblility to mold children into good, moral, and kind adults. I feel overwhelmed by the responsibility at times. What if I fail?"
This is an excellent question. I wish I had an answer. My kids are still rather young so a lot of their bad choices I chalk up to their ages. Sometimes I think God gave us free will so that we were allowed to make bad choices because from them we learn valuable lessons about life. I know I've made some terrible choices in my lifetime, everyone has. I hope my Mother didn't blame herself, but I bet she did. That's the nature of mothering. We blame ourselves for every second of suffering in our children's lives, whether it's our fault or not!
I have been blaming myself for Ellie's peanut allergy. Even though I know intellectually that the gallons of peanut butter I consumed while pregnant probably didn't cause her allergy, I can't help but feel guilty for eating it. But that's being a mom. The job comes with guilt!
I do know one thing though, anonymous poster, and that is that if you are doing the best you can, you will not fail.
My kids are still pretty young too, but whenever I start worrying in that direction I always just think about the lousy mistakes I made when I was younger, and how desperately my mom tried to get me to see what I was doing. I turned out okay and I can look back and learn from my mistakes. My mom has a few more gray hairs because of it, I'm sure, but I think that as long as our kids know we love them and we've got their backs, no matter the junk they get themselves into, then it'll be okay. That's just my two cents.
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