Yes, I am the worlds worst selfie taker. Thank you!
We have all heard it before.
“We aren’t given more than we can handle.”
“If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
While that may be true, it gets old. As parents who have some additional challenges in our lives, we already know how strong we can be. Not necessarily because we want to be, but because we have no other choice.
Here’s the thing though—yes, I’m speaking primarily to the Moms out there—we take every little thing said very personally when it comes to our kids. Where do you think the term “Mama Bear” comes from? NO one fights for a kid like their Mom. Your friends can call you (or your partner, or even your Mom) pretty much anything they want, when they are in a bad mood. But if they say one single word about your child, GAME ON. It’s a survival thing. We will do what we need to do, to protect our kids.
Things get tricky, though. While the highs of being a Mom truly are monumental (what Mom doesn’t beam with pride at the accomplishments of their kid?), the lows can be the lowest. We guide and help them in some ways to achieve greatness, whatever your measurement of that is. But any failures illogically become 99% our fault. Oh yes, the guilt of a mother. I’ve heard it’s a Jewish thing, or a Catholic thing, or a Greek thing. It’s not. It’s a Mom thing.
And it has to stop.
While I can’t cover all the bases, I will say that when it comes to allergies, we all need to stop. I see this commonly on social media. Moms saying “Oh, what did I do to cause this?” As of now, we can only speculate. There are so many theories about what has changed to cause food allergies to become more common: the food supply chain; too much hand washing; not enough diversity in our diets; when we first introduce solid foods to our child’s diet.
While things like the new early introduction guidelines are great, we all did what we could with the information we had at the time our kids were little. We have to stop the insanity of guessing what happened to “make” our kids develop food allergies. How many times have you seen people talking about a study, but then ten people say “well I didn’t XYZ, and we still have allergies”? No two of us have done everything the same, yet here we are in this same boat.
So here it is, if you’ve made it this far. You didn’t DO or NOT DO anything. You did, and continue to do, the best you can with the information you have, at the place you are. You have fought, and continue to fight, like the Mama Bear you are, and you are doing everything in your power to give your children the tools they need to be happy and healthy and productive members of society.
You are enough. You are not to blame. You are absolutely amazing.
