After a week of everyone asking, “Are you mom enough,” I
think it is just time to come out and admit the truth. I am not mom
enough. There I said it. You might feel better if you admitted it
too. Let’s just all take a deep breath
and confess, “I am not mom enough.” Feel
better? Now I am not making light of
motherhood, I’m just exhausted by the fact that mothering in America has become
a competitive sport. We pretend to be
enraged by last week’s Time magazine, but moms are forced to wrestle over this
question most days.
From the moment we find out we are pregnant, we prepare to
enter The Mommy Games. We arm ourselves with the latest parenting books and
fortify our homes with space-age safety gear.
Without a moment of parenting experience, we boldly enter the most
common Mommy Game, judgment. We judge the baby sucking on the grocery cart
handle. We judge the loud kid at church. We judge the neighborhood nose picker. Bad moms, bad moms, BAD MOMS we declare! We will never allow these things.
While still pregnant we commit ourselves to playing another
Mommy Game, perfection. We will make the right choices to create the
right end product. We map our parenting
path with the organization of a strategic planner. We pick our sides in the
battles of the day: Sears or Ferber,
nursing or a bottle, Montessori or a nanny. We make our selections with the
goal of creating a more successful kid than our neighbors.
When our precious little bundles arrive, the terrifying
reality hits and we feel far from being mom enough. The diapers leak and the baby screams. Colic sets in and no one sleeps. We get a prescription for Prozac. Instead
of asking a fellow mom for help, we play another game, deception. To the outside
world, we can make it all sparkle. We
dress up the baby and comb our hair. We
sign up for infant massage classes and play classical music in the
minivan. As we drive out of the neighborhood, we see
the neighbor yelling at her kids and we triumphantly shout, “Bad mom!” We almost forget our insecurities.
For the first 5 years of my daughter’s life I was a black belt
competitor in the Mommy Games. I would
match my breast-fed, co-sleeping, sling-riding, baby signing toddler up against
any one of those neighborhood Ferber babies.
She was bright, and quick, and happy. I banned the TV and made all my
own baby food. I enrolled her in the
best mommy/toddler classes and took pride in how she stacked up in the competitive
world of Gymboree classes. I hid all my insecurities and parenting
blunders behind the cutest little girl on the block.
While I was very successful at the Mommy Games, there was a
toll to playing. Trying to be “mom
enough” will suck the very joy out of motherhood. You can’t enjoy your child if they are a
product to perfect. While you are busy pretending
that everything is perfect at your house, it’s difficult to be close to your friends. To
create true friendships you have to be honest.
You have to be able to cry over your struggles and laugh at your
mistakes. You have to stop thinking parenting
is a game to win, because the deeper you get in, the more you realize how very,
very hard it is. But the simple truth is
we are all woefully unprepared and ill-equipped. Individually we are not mom enough, but when
we are brave enough to give up the Mommy Games something wonderful
happens. C.S. Lewis described it this
way:
“Friendship is born at that moment
when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only
one.”
When we realize that we are not the only one, we can gather
with a sister or two and cry out to the real parenting expert who promises:
“When two of you get together on
anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into
action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be
sure that I'll be there.” ( Matthew 18:19-20 The Message)
In that place where we stop the competitive games, and lean
into His strength, we can experience His promise that:
“ ‘My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly
about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 2 Cor 12:9 NIV
With His grace and power with us, surely we’ll find that we
are actually more than enough mom.
There will be
streamers – white, red, orange and yellow like flames. 
There will be a meal shared together. There will be a cake. Something like this with candles to represent the flames, strawberries representing the gifts and fruits of the Spirit. 
