a gray mom



I never knew parenting would be so hard. What a cliche, right? But it's true. I don't know what I thought, exactly, but somehow I expected that I would have some idea about the right way to raise my children, the right choices to make, the right discipline to use, the right way to love.

I was wrong. Oh, so very wrong.

I have ideas, but they change, and they're conflicting, and I'm rarely very confident in them. And some of them are just unworkable in our particular situation and context. Are other mothers this unsure, this conflicted, this scared?

Maybe my ambivalence is a consequence of my nature. I've always been pretty good at seeing both sides of an issue, but not so good at making choices. I live in a very gray world. Sometimes I wish there were more black and white. Or at least more clarity in the shades of gray.

I want an answer, dammit! I want to know how to make it better. I want to know how to provide my kids with the best. And I don't mean the best stuff... I mean the best foundation for confidence and compassion and purpose and love. I see pieces breaking and I don't know how to put them back together.

Yesterday the bright spring day seemed so hopeful, so energizing. Today it seems to be mocking me.

I know that tomorrow will be different, and the same, and somewhere in between. But right now I would gladly give up all purpose and talent of my own if it would get me the glue and the schematics to put the pieces together again.