Having A Bad Day Does Not Make You A Bad Mom

Having a bad day does not make you a bad mom.
Let’s repeat that “having a bad day does not make you a bad mom”.

One more time, so it really sticks “having a bad day does not make you a bad mom”.

Great! Now that we have that settled let’s talk about it. All too often as mothers we are expected to take everything in stride. Our families rely on us to be their pillar of strength and the world expects us to have it all together. All too often that pressure to be “perfect” gets to us and yet who is there to take care of us? Well, most of the time that’s left to us too.

Personally, I am blessed to have a fiancée who is amazing with our children and home. Whenever there is a problem I can call him and either he solves the problem, tries his best to solve it, or works with me to solve it. That should take away the pressure right? After all, I don’t have to deal with everything alone. (massive props to the mommies who have to do it ALL alone, you are the real superheros). The problem is, it doesn’t take away all the pressure. Sometimes it adds to the pressure we feel. The act of even telling someone something is wrong or that you need help with something can be pressure and anxiety inducing. Especially if you’re anything like me, which I know many moms are or secretly are, dealing with fighting anxiety and depression on a daily basis.

Today I hit snooze on my alarm, three times apparently. Each time barely awake and wishing for ten more minutes of sleep, okay maybe I was wishing for like three days of sleep but that’s mom life right?
Then my alarm went off again, shining a big red “7:15 am” display in my face. Even though I could have sworn I had just hit the snooze at 6:30.

I jumped out of bed and went to get my boys up for school. Their busses arrive around 8:00, so I had 45 minutes to get my 3 and 4-year-old ready for school. Easy enough, I’m always running late so I’m pretty good at getting kids ready on a short timeframe.

And although I may be good at it, it doesn’t make me feel any less anxiety because most mornings are met with resistance from my children; but I remind myself of the three lovely hours that I’ll have with just my daughter when they do leave for school. So I trudge on and force my boys awake and out of bed to start getting ready.

Around 7:30 I went downstairs to our basement to switch over the laundry that I had started the night before. The next thing I know, my foot it wet. I look down and see my basement floor covered in water coming from where our sub pump is. “F*cking Fantastic” are the exact words I uttered in this moment. I called my fiancée and he had to leave work to come check out the situation. (which we can’t really afford right now)

My mind was so wrapped up in our sub pump problem that for a split second I forgot I needed to get my kids off to school before I could even deal with anything else. I also forgot to let the puppy out.

So now I need to get the kids off to school, clean up puppy pee, and figure out what to do about the sub pump. Not to mention that our basement is a now a disaster.

The amount of anxiety I felt about the whole situation was growing by the minute.

My mind was filled with so much. It was overwhelming…

“get the boys dressed and off to school”
“don’t get them dressed to early because you want them in fresh pull ups”
“man, I really need to potty train my kids”
“this weekend, I will get my oldest son to not scream “no” and he will go on the potty!”
“can we even go potty right now? does that flow into the sub pump?”
“what exactly does the sub pump do?”
“I hope his work is understanding that he needs to leave”
“crap, how many hours will he miss?”
“how much is a new sub pump costs? is ours broken?”
“I wonder what got water damaged.”
“did we remember to not set the box with the christmas tree in it on the floor?”
“did the puppy pee AGAIN?”
“don’t let the kids see the tablets before school”
“the bus will be here in 10 minutes, where did their shoes go?!”
“why don’t my kids listen when I ask them to hurry? they’re moving like snails”
“come on, come on”
“crap, my daughter woke up early, I don’t have time to tend her before the bus gets here”
“alright YouTube sync teletubbies to the tv”
“ah! the bus is here”
“phew, boys off to school. now settle the girl and investigate the sub pump”

I had gone from peaceful sleep to feeling completely overwhelmed within 45 minutes. I was now anxious and full of manic energy. (Anytime I experience a problem or crisis I have a lot of manic energy.) The problem is when that goes away I often feel depleted and depressed. When I feel depleated, depressed, and anxious it often leads to a variation of emotions because I do not have the option to curl up in a ball and wait for it all to pass. Those emotions end up being varying degrees of sad and mad.

Now, I know I’m not alone here. Obviously you didn’t have the same morning as me. But we’ve all had mornings, days, even weeks that didn’t go as planned. The expectation is to take everything in stride and supermom your way through it.

That’s not always so easy.

Personally, I end up yelling and overreacting even when I don’t mean to. I end up feeling sad, hopeless, and like a failure. I battle away the depression and attempt to interact in a positive way with my children, yet the opposite tends to happen. I end up the angry and distraught mom. I will swear I’m not meant to be a mom and then feel bad that my children got me for a mom.

But then, then there is a break in the feeling. There’s a break in the action. While I sit there and reflect on all the things that made me anxious in the first place and all the things I’ve said or done because of the anxiety, I start to accept and understand that I can’t control it all and I need to try to remember that. I start to forgive myself. I tell myself I’ll do better tomorrow. And I will, at least I will try and that’s what counts.

And then something else happens. Despite my mood and my yelling, my child is heading towards me with a smile on his face. He comes over to show me the “surprise” rocket ship he built, again, for the 100th time. I know he wants me to be excited too. So I react as such, I say “wow, a rocket ship! that’s so cool!”.

In this moment my son lights up, so excited that I’m excited about his rocket. He proceeds to tell me that it is “for you mom”. My heart melts. Not because it is such a special gift, since I receive a “surprise” in the form of something he’s built almost daily. But because he is giving me a gift, he is not mad or sad. He has forgiven me for being not my best today. He has forgiven me because he was never really upset with me because I am Mom.

I am Mom. I have bad days, good days, anxiety ridden days, and depressing days. Sometimes I yell, sometimes I feel like a bad mom. But I am still MOM and my children will always forgive me. They will always let me try again and will still show me they love me even when I seem to struggle to show them in those moments.

The thing is “those moments” do not define us. We can always recover. We can always try again. The point is that we are trying. The only way to completely fail is to not even try. Our children will love us even if we are not perfect. Our children will forgive us. The only thing left is for us to take care of us and forgive ourselves.

Forgive yourself for having a bad moment, day, week, even month. Forgive yourself.

You are a good mom. You can do this. Just try, try again and forgive, forgive, forgive.