Who's Right?

I was told the other day that while I am not a "bad mother" I'm not a good one, either, because I'm not "firm, fair, and consistent." I beat myself up about this for a while. I even texted a few close girlfriends because I was so upset.

One of them said to me, "Oh really? And they know how 'firm, fair, and consistent' you are because they live with you all day everyday?"

The two people who said this to me are in my husband's family. His family is notorious for thinking that they are right, 100% of the time. No one is ever better at anything than someone in their family--but only people who were BORN into the family, not those who married in. So, that means I've spent a lot of time feeling inadequate in the four years since we've moved back to Iowa.

For the first few months of my sons' lives I had to defend my position on everything. It didn't matter what I wanted their sleep schedules to be, someone in the family had done it differently. It didn't matter what feeding schedule I wanted, someone else had set that up better in the past. As for discipline goes, of course I couldn't do that right, either.

Everything I said, thought, or did was second guessed by so many people that I began to second guess myself until I was crazy. I felt like the worst mother on the planet. I started to worry that maybe the boys would be better off without me if I was, indeed, so bad at mothering.

Things got better for a while, and now they're at it again. I began to drive myself crazy again last week when Jereme's two aunts told me what they did. Then when my friend reminded me that they weren't with me all day, everyday, I started thinking.

Does it really matter if the people in Jereme's family think I'm a good mother? Don't all mothers have faults? Doesn't everyone mess up some time or another?

I love my boys, and they know it. I work to keep a schedule for them so they know what to expect next. I make rules, and I enforce them as needed. Joseph and Jacob are fed, clothed, and clean. We play, go to the park, go to the library, and read together. I do the absolute best I can. My husband still feels like he has to earn his mother's love. My kids will NEVER feel that way about me.

The crux of the matter is this: I am their mother. No one knows what they need better than I do. I'm the one with them day in and day out. It doesn't matter if Grandma was feeding her kids peanut butter on a spoon when they were infants, I said not to, and that is what matters. It doesn't matter if everyone else on the entire planet puts their kids down to bed without cuddling them--Jereme and I have chosen that time of day (or night) to be our special time for cuddling with the boys.

I am as firm, fair, and consistent as I can possibly be. Perhaps if Jereme's family lived with us ALL the time they would see that--but they don't because there are times when kids need to be punished "later." Just because I don't pull out the fly swatter or take the boys' pants down to spank them in front of everyone does not mean that I don't follow up on the bad behavior when we get home.

So I've stopped beating myself up over what Jereme's family, and the world around me, thinks of me as a parent. No one walks in my shoes, and no one knows my kids the way I do. As long as I do my best, and I love them, then I am a good mother. It really doesn't matter what others think.