Happy mum is more important than a perfect mom.
VERY INTERESTING ARTICLE
I'm a full time stay at home mum. My friends call me the super mum. I make sure my kids are all rounders. They shine in studies, dramas,
sports, elocution and what not. And I'm also paranoid when it comes to their food. I strain myself to give them only the healthiest food I could think of. Learnt baking and cooking exotic food from scratch for them. I could only make instants noodles before marriage. I know that my son enjoys my food since he always look forward to his surprise aft school snacks. I keep tab on all their activities and hell, I think I know more about Grade 8 Social Science than his teacher. I drive them around for all their classes and spoil them when they win something.
But as my son grew,somewhere along the line of being that perfect mum, I forgot ABOUT being a happy mum.
He was changing and I wasn't. My son who used to worship me started shouting and rebelling. I even wrote anonymously to a help page asking how to deal with this.
But nothing changed.
One day, I hit him out of anger. I froze aft he turned to stare at me. He was hurt,angry and disappointed.His eyes were filled with tears and hatred. He stopped talking to me. He is the type that waves goodbye from the bus until the bus goes out of sight. He stopped waving.
That night, he slept without kissing me goodnight.
I cried a lot aft he left to school. But I also started thinking.
That was my breakpoint.
I realised that I have stopped talking to him I'm always ORDERING him to do this,to do that,get ready for class,study,clean up etc. I get annoyed when his marks go down.I stopped asking him how his day went,how he feels and what he thinks. I stopped tucking him in bed. I stopped saying how much I loved him. I was always rushing them to bed so that I could prep the ingredients for their lunch box. After all,their lunch box needs to be perfect eh?
I took a deep breath that day.
When he came back from school that day,I waited with a happy smile. I prepared his fav snacks and talked while he ate. I talked while I drove him to tuitions. I talked when he had his dinner. I talked when he was in bed. I also said sorry for not treating him like a big boy. He was quiet while I did most of the talking.
Guess what he said?
“Ma, I know you work hard for us. But honestly, I love talking to you more than anything Don’t strain and cook something special for me if it means that you won’t have any time to talk to me
My point is
Make time for them as they won’t remember what you buy for them. No egos with kids. Apologize when you make mistakes. Compliment them and constantly tell them how much you love them. They crave for acknowledgement. Kids nowadays are different and old parenting methods won’t work. A lot have changed in my home ever since. It’s more peaceful. He listens to everything I say. He seems more peaceful now. That’s what we all strive for at the end of the day.
Happy mum is more important than a perfect MUM 😍