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Sucking as a Mom? Me Too

October 23, 2017 by Michelle

Two equally traumatic parent-things happened to me over the last week. Parent-things are those people/places/things that happen to you as a parent or because you’re a parent that you have no words for. Anyway, the first one was the #MeToo outcry that happened this past week. Oh, my heart! It hurt me, and I thought, “I don’t want my daughter to be a part of that. Ever.” Research was done on martial arts classes in my city for skinny white girls, without me ever consulting my daughter. And why would I do that? I am her mother…*eye roll*…which leads me to the second parent-thing.

“Your weakness doesn’t mess up the plan, your weakness was the plan.” -Paul David Tripp, speaking on parenting
2 Corinthians 12:9

I don’t know about you, but this is so hard to even register. I mean, we live in this weird polarized culture of parents being either ‘unfit’ (I hate that term, by the way) or super parents (i.e. liars on facebook).

When we become parents there is this hidden idea that emerges as “You’re supposed to know everything and have it all together.” Well, just like I didn’t become a 1950’s housewife after I got married (what I thought would happen somewhere in my subconscious, why? I do not know.), I didn’t become a parenting expert (whatever that is) when I had children. My daughter (the oldest child I parent) is nine, and it has taken me this long to figure out I want to connect with her more than I want to control her.

If connection is the goal, and not making little clones, don’t we want to connect them to Him with our arms around their shoulders and not their necks (so, to speak…don’t get crazy)? Is it easier to say, “Hey buddy, I failed today too. It’s okay. Let’s try again together” than it is to say, “Because I said so”? And if it is, can we all just admit we are all ‘unfit’ parents in need of One who’s power is made perfect in our weakness? Can we sympathize with the weaknesses of others?

It makes me think that taking my kids to God before a meal or on a Sunday is a bit cheap on my part (or should I say strong/self-sufficient), if I’m not revealing to them my desperate need for Him in the moments I am sinning against them.

Maybe I’m on about this because of just finishing the Paul David Tripp Parenting thing with my fellowship here. It was a breath of fresh air and a sucker punch at the same time. And on the heels of it, I am looking at my daughter who is moving slower than she ever has in her life this morning and screaming at her to “Get over here like her mother…*eye roll*…told {her} to a million times!” And she looked at me with her big blue eyes and all I could hear in my head was “Weak sauce, Thorne. Weak sauce.” And I guess I could tell you my defense and try to make you understand but it doesn’t really matter because all of my reasons are just stairs leading up to my mommy pedestal and away from my daughter.

As we walked to the bus (in plenty of time, mind you), I had to say to her, “I’m sorry,” but I wasn’t just sorry for yelling. I had to tell her why I was sorry and that was uncomfortable. “I’m sorry I yelled at you because I don’t want you to miss the bus because I don’t want your teachers to agree on what they already think and know, which is I am a total screw up at the mom thing. I didn’t want to be the last one at the bus AGAIN because I’m afraid all the moms will know that I’m sucking at this mom thing. I don’t want your dad to think I can’t handle this mom thing after a year of torturous depression after Grannie died.”

Etcetera, etcetera…like so much Thom York…I just let it out all over her. Fifteen steps, then a sheer drop.

I said to her, “God knew I would suck at this when He let me have you though, and I think we can both trust His decisions to do that. I don’t know if I’ll get better, but I’ll keep trying.”

I wanted her to affirm me. I wanted her to say, ‘You are a good mom,’ or ‘Who cares what other people think?’ At least an ‘I love you, Mommy.’ I mean, am I not teaching her those things??? I am her mother…*eye roll*…

My daughter didn’t regurgitate to me what I taught her. She didn’t go into clone mode. What she said was so much more powerful.

“Me too.”

And a week’s worth of #MeToo stories came flooding back to me and a thought occurred to me, soft as my pillow, if I am weak with her, she gets to be part of a Me Too that involves Him and freedom and love. My weakness, then, would seem a good place to rest if she has any chance of realizing her need for Him. My weakness, then, is not a traumatic parent-thing but His plan to bring her to Himself, something I can never really do. My weakness, then, is my connector to her heart when she realizes her need for Him, and I get to say to her, “Me too.”