Am I a good mother? What makes one a good mother?

These questions come to my mind a lot, and certainly more so on Mother’s Day.

The performance standards for this important job are ever shifting. Do you breastfeed? Do you use cloth diapers? Do you stay home with your kids? Do you keep your kitchen in pristine condition? Do your children obey in public? Do they help you with chores? Do they eat vegetables? Are they engaged in age-appropriate activities that develop their minds and bodies? Do they socialize well with other children? How often do they get sick? Do you read to them every day? Are they learning a foreign language? Do they spend enough time outside? How much TV do they watch? On and on and on goes the list…

These are all good and important aspects of motherhood, and yet none of these things in and of themselves makes one a good mother.

Scrolling through my FB feed yesterday I saw all the pictures and posts about moms posted by proud and grateful sons and daughters. “My mom did so much for me”, “she is such a selfless person”, “now that I am a mom I realize how hard it was for my mom, and I am overwhelmed with gratitude”…

Well, it sound like a definition of a good mom! A sacrificial, selfless person. A good mom (or dad for that matter) is a person who is willing to set aside her dreams, her needs, and her ambitions for the long-term benefit of her children. This is also called LOVE (It finally dawned on me that hatred is not the opposite of love. Selfishness is.)

Unfortunately, it is getting harder and harder to be a good mom. We live in the world that worships selfishness. “Follow your dreams”, “learn to love yourself”, “self-actualize”… I recently heard a lady talk about her decision to leave her husband and children to pursue a new love. She said:  “How could I be a good mother if I am not happy?”  Then she added that even though she has been living happily in this new relationship for the past 10 years her relationship with her kids was still “strained” for some reason. Sad, sad, sad…

Side note: A lot of these messages are actually coming out of the women’s movement. Now, I thought ‘women’s’ meant ‘for women’? English is not my native tongue, so there must be some linguistic or cultural misunderstanding because the women’s movement is actually anti-women. I think it should be renamed from ‘feminism’ to ‘egotism’ as to not confuse us foreigners. 🙂

Selflessness is a hard standard to live up to. I know this from personal experience. If you ask my family of origin they will tell you that I am officially the most selfish person in the family. For a while I actually thought it was an honorary title…Yea, I know… Sad, sad, sad…

I even became a mother for selfish reasons. I felt like I was ‘missing out’ or that my life was ‘not fulfilling’. Little did I know that the moment my son was born my life will forever be full and increasingly filling. 🙂

I finally realized that caring for another person and meeting their needs can be a source of tremendous joy and meaning, for them and for me. Who would have thought, right? Well, actually someone has thought of that long before me. “If you try to hold on to your life you will lose it, but if you give it away you will find it”. And he didn’t even have biological children!

So, the answer to the question: “Am I a good mother?” is ‘I TRY’. And sometimes I am. And hopefully I am getting better at it. I am certainly not as selfless as my mom, but one day I hope to be.

Don’t we all?

Happy (late) Mother’s Day!

P.S. I would like to express sincere gratitude to my husband Seth for talking the older two children to the movies so I can write this post in relative peace and quiet with just the baby on my hip. Thank you, Love!