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  And the “Mother-Of-The-Year” Award goes to….

…someone else please!  Qualifying for the coveted “Mother-Of-The-Year” (MOTY) Award seems to be getting harder and harder.

Back in the “day,” if you kept your children fed and clothed you were a shoe-in.  If you sent your kid to college, you were practically up for a Nobel Prize.   Now the requirements are too high and the result is worry, guilt and the sense that no matter how much we do, we are not quite getting it “right.”

But I’ve got some great news mamas:  We have officially done enough worrying for an entire generation.

We have built up our savings account of guilt.  No amount of meditation and massage can ever match our fretting, stressing and second guessing.

What do you think, time for a change?  After all, if we continue on like this, we won’t live long enough to hang out with the grand-kids.  In fact, we might just miss hanging out with our own kids.

Let’s take a lesson from generations past.

I don’t know about your mother, but my mother and her friends were not regularly volunteering in the classroom or helping us sell wrapping paper to wallet-worn grandparents for the MONTHLY school fundraiser.

They made sure we had clean clothes, gave us a kiss and hug goodbye each morning and got us to school on time.  After about 12 years, they showed up for graduation with a nice big bouquet of flowers.  Aside from that, we were left to fend for ourselves.

They did not wrap our mattresses and pillows in hypo allergenic baggies, start prepping us for the S.A.T. before we learned to S.P.E.L.L. or rush us to the gastroenterologist for a stomach ache.

In fact, I only remember one doctor who took care of all ailments and he was only brought in when something was broken or bleeding.  That’s it.

I am quite sure that aside from Dr. Spock, my mother did not consult books on “parenting.”  I’ll bet dollars to donuts she relied on her college degree, common sense, her love for me and careful avoidance of the mistakes her own mother made, to define her parenting strategies.

Did her generation of mothers make mistakes?

You bet!  But no more than I make with my children.

And you know what?  She and her friends had more time to enjoy their lives as women, wives and mothers.  They spent very little energy worrying about whether they were doing a “good enough” job.

In fact, I’ll guess that most of our mothers were overly confident in this area – assuming that “mother knows best” even at times when they clearly did not!  But that’s another article…

I know, I know.  Things have changed.

Schools don’t have the resources they used to have so parents have to jump in and roll up their sleeves.  We know more about child development now and so we have more opportunity to help our children thrive.  Medicine has changed and we can now help kids with allergies and other ailments to avoid needless suffering.

We are right to take advantage of the resources we have – but do we have to earn a PhD in every area?

Somewhere in this mix, mothers have been led to believe that unless they become experts (or consult experts) in many areas of life, they are not doing their jobs as mothers.

And subsequently, we may over-do by being 10 steps ahead.  We may become the Secret Service Advance Team for our little President – doing our own reconnaissance from the womb-room to the dorm-room and beyond.

It’s exhausting, isn’t it?

The worst part is, we may miss out on what is happening right now.

Here’s my solution.  I’m leaving the MOTY Award for another mom.

Instead of doing everything perfectly, with the advice of experts, let’s go out there and make a few mistakes.

We can be trusted to respond in the moment when we need to and use the time we save to enjoy today as less-than-perfect mothers.

Coach Me Quick Tips for Giving up the MOTY Award:

1.  On a scale of 1 to 10… Focus your energy and attention on the areas of parenting that are truly “10’s” for you.  We have so many resources, it is easy for everything to become a “10.”  Give yourself a break and knock some of those “10’s” down to “5’s” or (gasp) knock them off the list completely.

2.  Make a list of the ways in which you are a terrific mother and keep it in your wallet as a reminder on those days when you are questioning every decision you have made or will make.

3.  Choose 1 (just 1!) area of mothering that you would like to strengthen.  How can you do this?  Maybe you would like to be more patient?  How can you strengthen your abilities?  Be sure to acknowledge yourself as you see progress.

4.  Know that no one really deserves the MOTY Award, and at the same time, we all do.  Perfection is an illusion.  Phew!