Perfectly Imperfect

I have something VERY important to tell you. I know it will probably surprise everyone, but I am not perfect. Ha Ha Ha, Shocker I know! And guess what? You are not either. Therefore let’s forgive ourselves for past mistakes and try again today to do better. 

Being a parent of three kids has taught me tons about life (including how humbling these little humans can make me).   One of the biggest things that I have learned as a Mom is that every child has some issue or struggle.  It could be Autism, Anxiety, OCD, ADHD, or some medical issue.   Maybe it is Fructose Malabsorption, a lazy eye, struggling with learning or making friends.  We have to face the fact that no one is perfect not you, not me, and definitely no one’s kid. 

Our job as parents is to nurture their strengths and teach them how to live and function with their weaknesses in a world where they will not be perfect.  I want to teach my children the beauty that can be found in their imperfections.

And just to put my truth out there, each one of my children has one or more of the diagnosis above to include them all in our unique family.  Having shared that, I need you all to know, I don’t like any diagnosis.   I would like to have not needed any of them.  But in the end there it is.  Just because I don’t want it though, doesn’t change the fact that it is true. 

When I am having an extra rough day, or when I see a family where the kids seem to be excelling at everything, I try to remind myself about the family next door who has issues too.  You know the one I am talking about.  The one that Dad goes to work and mom stays home yet they still take vacations every year and have extra spending money.  The family who posts all about the accomplishments their kids make and about the mom who just finished volunteering at the nursery or in the soup kitchen because she had the time.  The family who looks perfect is also struggling in one way or another.  I try to find the blessings in my own life on these painfully challenging days.  The smile on my boy’s face or the love my husband shows me everyday.  I look at these blessings I have been given and try to laugh instead of cry about how imperfect my world is.

In our life we have had to embrace the special circumstances that have added stress and financial burdens to our life.  It has not been easy and the choices we have made are not right for everyone.  But in the end we are not perfect and we chose to raise our kids the only way we know how.  And someday when we look back, I can say that I did everything I could for our family.  I hope by then many of their struggles will have been forgotten and overcame.  I hope one day my kids will sit around our table with their own families laughing about the mistakes we made and the adventures their imperfect childhood contained.