A good mother knows {not} the words her child cannot say

Pinterest.

Tell me all about how great it is for finding just what you want and for keeping track of ideas. Yeah. I’ve heard it.

But, Pinterest often equates to I’m-not-like-the-rest/I’m-not-the-best.

Not far from the Lego minifigure party favors and the dress you can make out of your husband’s old shirt is a charm necklace deemed beautiful and widely shared with this quote:

Go ahead, pin it with the rest of them.

Perhaps some women are inspired by that and get warm fuzzies. Me? Not so much.

I’m not really thinking that I want to wear those words around my neck as a reminder that I am not actually a good mother because a lot of the time, I simply do not know the words my children cannot say. In fact, I’d venture to say that most of the time I do not know the words my children cannot say. I’m not saying I don’t want to. But, my children are a bit of an enigma. I mean, they’re people you know, just smaller people. They are complex and process experiences every moment in ways that are different than I do. They feel things different than I do. Just when I think I may be catching on to a pattern and I’m getting them and I’m feeling like I need to wear a red t-shirt with #awesomemom on the back, they change. Just like that, they change. And, those words they weren’t saying that I thought I was hearing are…pouf…a mystery again and I’m still wearing my all-family-coordinating Mickey Mouse shirt…by myself.

If I could wear a charm with this and convince myself that it was somehow inspiring, I’m pretty sure that it would serve as a great tool to create distance and discord with my children in a few years. While my boys may think the idea of their mother as a mindreader sounds deserving of a tshirt itself (“#mindreader. Yes, I know what you’re thinking right now” on a grey tee), all I can hear in my head in a shrill teenagery voice are the words, “you think you know everything!” “You don’t understand me!” “Why do you think you have me all figured out?”

Good moms don’t always know the words their children cannot say. Good moms don’t always even know the words their children can say. Good moms know they don’t have their children all figured out and that they never fully will, and good moms keep going anyway. That’s what good moms do.