Stop Bothering and Focus on Being the BEST Parent

While everyone is busy raving and ranting about some parenting issue or choice, I have other worries on my mind. It's not that I don't want to join in and have my say but motherhood has certainly taught me how to tune out when I have my own infinite worries. The current worries may seem trivial: potty training that seemed to have started well has been adandoned. Child proofing equipment has to be reassessed as my son is getting the hang of destroying everything I try to protect. I haven't washed my hair in four days and I am seriously contemplating short hair. The mind is a vicious cycle of thoughts and in the midst of all this my son comes pleading for me to color with him. I realise I cannot escape as he has come equipped with crayons and paper. So I give in and everything else is put on hold for a while. I might be in a mess later, might even be upset that I still have unwashed hair, may want to even vent but I'll deal with it when it happens and here's why:

Before our son was born, we spent a lot of time carefully selecting things because we wanted him to have the best of everything. In the past two years, I cannot honestly say we've given him the best of everything but I can cross my heart and say that I have always strived to be the BEST parent, the BEST mother. It did not matter what choice I made. It meant choosing how exactly I wanted to be or what exactly I wanted to do in a particular situation, irrespective if it was the technically right parenting thing to do. It meant tuning out to all the 'noise' and being the best, happiest person that my child wanted me to be because he IS the only person's opinion that I should care and worry about.

In a few years, when we look back, my son will not know if I was busy defending my choice but he will certainly remember how I made him feel in every situation I faced as a result of the choice. He will not remember if he had the cheapest pack of crayons or the most expensive one. He might not know the reason why we had to face a particular situation or make a difficult choice. However he might certainly remember the moments we spent just living the moment, laughing, doing things where he was the focus of the choice, irrespective of the end-result. He might certainly have a great respect for the way I handled the challenges and struggles. For him to remember all this, I need to strive to be the BEST parent, the BEST version of myself in every situation. It's my responsibility to help him remember these moments as the ones where I made him feel the happiest no matter what the choice, or whether it was absolutely worth it or not.