Thought for the Day

Cara’s thought for the day…last night I had a horrible nightmare and it was all based on guilt…parent guilt. I raised three boys, they are now amazing men, but a long time ago they were three little boys and I was one scared mom. I was placed in a position to raise them on my own, and I wasn’t always great at it. My support system wasn’t always healthy and neither was I. I did some really fab things as a parent and I made some mistakes. I think I lived in fear of people seeing my mistakes and that is what my nightmare was about…the world seeing my mistakes and taking my babies. It is so funny…I am 50 and the fear can still wake me up. Likely this fear come back because I am visiting my beautiful grandchildren, their being babies reminds me of when mine were that small. Why am I telling you of my nightmare? I was a good parent, but I made mistakes and guess what? They are ok. In fact I would say that they have become pretty amazing people. We as parents are going to mess up. We will get over stressed and we will get tired. Please forgive yourself for those times when you don’t quite do it right. I didn’t realise until my nightmare how much residual guilt I had and I need to work on that…it isn’t healthy! Please know that all of us who have parented and are parenting get it. We are not always going to be perfect but we can still do a job of parenting that is good enough. Try your best, use the tools you have, seek out new ones and keep going. Therapeutically parent your kids and when you don’t get it right? Be kind to yourself and forgive yourself for being very truly human…so one day when you look at the job you did that you can really enjoy those things that you really did get right.