I've had some thoughts swimming around in my head recently - and when I came across this quote I finally was able to bring it around full circle and find a way to express my thoughts.
"Don't believe everything you think."
When I took my kids to school on the first day of school I enjoyed getting reacquainted with parents of my children's friends. Most of the conversations were nice - but a few started making me uncomfortable. I started to feel guilty because I was SOOO excited that my kids were going to be in school and I talked to a few moms who went on about how they were so sad summer was over and they wished it could be summer forever. My thought was, man, if it was summer forever I would be miserable!! Then I felt guilty because perhaps they enjoy their kids more than I do or maybe they're just plain old better mothers.
The other day I happened to run into two of those guilt-inducing moms that I talked to on the first day of school. Turned out the one only had her kids at home for two weeks of the summer (the two weeks she had for vacation). The rest of the time they were at their dad's or grandparents. Then the other woman mentioned that in the summer her daughter spends all week at her dad's and is with her on the weekends only.It was quite an eye-opener for me!! These guys loved summer because their kids were GONE!!! And here I was thinking I was a bad mother because I didn't want summer to go on forever....but my kids don't get sent away all summer! They do go to a grandparents here and there or stay with cousins here or there...but mostly we're together as a family. Hardly compares to those families where the kids are gone all summer.
I guess I won't feel so bad about myself anymore for enjoying having my kids in school...and I'll try to stop incorrectly comparing myself to others.
No comments:
Post a Comment