Don't Let 1 Bad-Mom Moment Define You

Nobody — and I mean nobody — raises a child without messing up. I don't care if you're an experienced pediatrician with an additional PhD in child psychology who moonlights as a clergy member on your evenings off; the occasional slip-up is inevitable. It happens to all of us, and anyone who says it doesn't is either delusional or a Lying McLiar-pants.

Maybe you absolutely lost your cool and yelled so loudly that your throat is sore. Maybe you had a short-tempered moment where your tongue was sharper than it should have been, and you said something nasty you can't take back. Maybe you forgot something so important to your child that she ended up heartbroken. Maybe you didn't realize he had a fractured wrist and thought he was just being dramatic and he wandered around with it like that for three days before you finally took him to the doctor (*sheepishly raises hand*). The point is, despite the sanctimonious "perfect-parent" posters in every comment section ever, not one single person makes it through unscathed. Every one of us will do something — maybe even frequently — that fills us with bitter, instantaneous regret.

If we could simply feel that regret, file it under "oops," and try not to make the same mistake again, things would be much easier. But it's never that cut-and-dried. Because every time we goof up our parenting plan, it derails our self-worth for much longer than it should. It gets under our skin and stays there for the rest of the day, if not longer, resurfacing periodically in our consciousness like a rubber ducky breaking the surface of the bathwater: we push it down, it pops right back up. We berate ourselves for this terrible thing we did. We let one poor choice define us for an infinitely greater amount of time than any of our good choices, even though we make those far more often. And we shouldn't, because one bad-mom moment doesn't define who we are as parents.

When is the last time you gave yourself a pat on the back for all the things you do for your kids? Those extra stories, the hugs and kisses, sacrificing the last bite of your cookie. Drying tears, kissing scrapes, cleaning up barf. Singing songs, soothing fears, cutting the food into small bites so they won't choke. Worrying into the sleepless night about how to make their lives better. Those things all count. Those are the things that make us the people our children love and depend on, all those little services (Laundry! Baths! Meals!) and selfless acts of love that we don't think twice about — or, heaven forbid, actually give ourselves credit for.

Every parent messes up. Even the amazing ones. And here's the irony: you criticize yourself so harshly when you make a mistake not because you're a crappy parent, but because you're a good one. If you weren't, you wouldn't care so much. You wouldn't give a flying fig how your actions, your reactions, your demeanor affect your child.

Being a good parent isn't about perpetual perfection, always doing everything right. If that were the criteria, we'd all be doomed. Being a good parent means loving your child and doing the best you can, which looks different for everybody. Be willing to forgive yourself, because some days, you'll fall far short of your own expectations; sometimes, you feel so depleted that you don't have much of yourself to offer. But that doesn't make you a bad parent.

It makes you a good parent who's having a bad day. And there's a big difference.