I Wish They Could Have Had This Mom

It’s weird, ya know. Growing up.

I was a young mom. I guess I still am, depending on how you read that phrase. Among my kids’ friends’ parents, I am on the younger side: 40-years-old and my oldest just graduated high school while my youngest is closing out his elementary years. But once upon a time, I was also a young mom: a 22-year-old girl that someone saw fit to send home with a baby in her arms. By 26, I was a stay-at-home mom with three kids ages three and under, and every day was about survival. I didn’t have time to read parenting books; I was so frazzled I probably wouldn’t have remembered what they said anyway. I had some ideas about the kind of mom I wanted to be, but plans for how to become her? That hadn’t actually occurred to me, so my parenting journey has been a lot like assembling the plane while it’s in the air.

I did my best, and honestly, I could have done a lot worse.

We went to libraries and playgrounds and moms’ groups and church. We carried goldfish and sippy cups everywhere we went, survived diaper blowouts in Target, did our grocery shopping all together with those jumbo carts, back before grocery pickup was a thing. We baked cookies and took naps and learned to swim and threw tantrums (them and me). I was far from perfect, but I really tried, and I was always open to learning and improving. And truthfully, I did. I learned and improved.

Nowadays, I’m a way better mom than I was at 22 or 26 or 35.

I’m gentler, more patient, and better educated on child development. If only I had known in my 20s what I know now, I would have done things a lot differently. I would have been more intentional about some things and less worried about others. There would have been space for all of us to be humans in process rather than applying grown-up logic to preschool problems. I would have had more grace for their mistakes as well as my own.

At my daughter’s recent graduation party, my husband made one of those videos of a bunch of old pictures set to music. While Jon Foreman crooned, “We were so young, we had no idea that life was just happening,” I watched my daughter grow up on the screen. Every so often there would pop up a picture of me with her, and I realized I wasn’t just watching her; I was watching myself grow up on that screen too. “I close my eyes and go back in time, you were just a child then and so was I…” the song went on as I wiped ugly tears from my face. When we become mothers, our lives become about our children. But we’re still people too, and while we raise our kids, it turns out we grow up right alongside them.

Sometimes my teenagers complain that I treat my 10-year-old differently than I did them at the same age, and all I can say is, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m doing this because I learned I was wrong before, and now I’m choosing to do better.” My fourth kid is getting a better mom than my first got, and he’ll probably never fully appreciate that. I think the older ones will, though. As my daughter sets out into adulthood, I think her experience of my mothering compared to her view of what her younger brother has will teach her a lot about who she wants to be, and probably a good bit of who she does not want to be as well. I can only hope there’s more of the former than the latter. But one thing these years of parenting have taught me is that it’s not up to me. I gave her my best – it’s better now than it was when she was little, but it was still my best – and that will shape her in ways I pray will be mostly positive. Often I wish she could have had the mom I am now, but I have to trust the one she got is what she needed to become who she is meant to be. 

Whether you’re new to parenting or have years of experience, it’s never too late (or too early!) to grow up. Keep your mind and heart open to learn, change, and redirect your course. Even if your older kids were raised by a less-evolved version of yourself, they will learn from seeing your commitment to growth and repair.