Relative Motherhood

I pride myself on being a decent mom. I don't try to stretch and say I'm a good mom. I think that would be disingenuous. Don't get me wrong. I have moments when I feel like a really good mom. Other times I'm short tempered with the kids and feel like a bad mom. Usually, though, I come down somewhere in the middle = decent mom. And I'm good with it.
I'm the mom who doesn't freak out if my kids forget to take homework back on time or brush their hair and teeth or change clothes, as long as these are exceptions rather than rules.
My point is that I am trying hard not to impose some crazy drive for perfection onto my kids. I am a failed perfectionist myself, and I have realized that it is quite a lot of wasted energy. My mothering philosophy is ever evolving, but for now I've decided that if I can raise responsible, righteous, respectful children, that's enough. If we never have a perfect attendance award or a first place trophy, I'm still going to be happy, and that's that.
Then days like today happen, and I begin to question.
Today, as you know if you read my earlier entry, I let my kids stay home from school. It's been a crazy week or so, the weather has been insane, not one person here has had enough sleep, and I called a time out. We all slept in and lazed about until it was time to take Peter to his dental appointment.
I loaded up all three kids, by this time sort of regretting having let them stay home, and headed to the office. Peter was actually excited to go, and I thought it would be a cakewalk. And it was right up until the end of the cleaning. He refused to have his mouth rinsed and suctioned, so we backed off and decided to just let him rinse and spit, skip the floss, and have the dentist do a quick exam. Noone wants a kid with soured memories of the dentist, so you pick your battles there. While we're waiting, Peter's overly sensitive gag reflex kicked in, and he "choked." Choking is Peterspeak for "something doesn't feel right on my throat or tongue, so I am going to vomit now." He choked first into his hands, then mine, then his clothes, then mine, and finally onto the floor. It was glorious. I became frazzled and impatient and felt far less than decent as I continued to let the day get the better of me. Peter never napped, his nagging irritated me the rest of the day, I never fed anyone lunch (unless popcorn counts. . . let's count it!), and I snapped 70 or 80 times at anyone who seemed an easy target.
Later I left the kids with a sitter to go help a friend take some photos of a few groups of dancers. My job was to wrangle the Dance Moms (they deserve proper noun status in my book), and I soon started to feel better about my mothering again. After all, I don't force my kids to wear itchy costumes and fake eyelashes. And I certainly don't bring a bottle of champagne to picture day and pass out booze to the other mothers of toddlers who then have to drive home (the mothers, presumably, would be driving, not the girls). And I certainly don't do that when I'm about 6 months pregnant. Yep, I may be a little tired and grouchy and more than a bit of a slacker, but as I sat watching this all go down, I allowed myself a moment of self righteous satisfaction. Maybe I am a better mom than I give myself credit for. Definitely a way better mom than these nuts, for sure. Insert pat on the back. I feel decent yet again.
About an hour later, I was seeing the last of these moms out the door and realizing that I had been mostly smiling for an hour. They were kind of fun. Noone was drunk, they had all treated their daughters and each other with patience and love, and the few ounces of champagne that the pregnant lady had would not have been enough to have hurt her baby. I started to feel bad again. Maybe I'm not only a poor mother, but also a terrible judgmental snob.
And then I had another thought. Maybe this was just her equivalent of my letting my kids skip school. She was being what, to her, seemed reasonable, even if not everyone would like it. And she was relaxed and taking care of her daughter and having a great day.
So maybe I'm not terrible and neither is she. Maybe we actually share philosophies but manifest them differently.
That issue solved, and my rightful place as a decent mom restored in my own conscious, my next thought was something like, "pass the champagne."