Give Yourself Grace

As I read through the book Detoured: The Messy Grace-Filled Journey from Working Professional to Stay-at-Home Mom I am reminded so vividly of those early ages when the kiddos are super young and need everything. I’m certainly not out of the clear. Every time people ask me how old my kids are and I tell them (currently 7, 6 and 4 in a few months) they tend to gasp and say something along the lines of “girl, you are busy!” To which I smile and wholeheartedly agree. The 7 year old wants more independence than he is ready for and the 6 year old, well she tends to prefer more help than she actually needs. The not quite 4 year old is an entirely other story. She wants the same independence that the 7 year old wants and then some! So yes, it is BUSY, and crazy, and loud, and sometimes I may text my husband that he’s going to come home to a house flipped upside down because I am headed to Hawaii. Alone. For a very, very, very long time.

What I wish someone had told me when I was in the trenches of three kids in 3.5 years—which, truthfully it only feels like in the last two years that I’ve begun to get my bearings—was give yourself grace. Just like a new job takes adjusting so does motherhood. When I was working outside the home, I remember every time I had a new employee on my team or even spoke with a friend in a new job I had the same encouragement to share, it takes time to learn the ropes, the cultural nuances, the history that you are now stepping into, the grooves and patterns these new coworkers—for better or worse—are accustomed to. Sometimes a new job can be a pretty smooth and almost effortless transition but more often than not you are navigating cultural landmines while trying to build rapport with new colleagues, as well as establish your place on the team. It’s no easy feat that takes time.

Unlike a new job where you can learn the ropes in about a year or so, this new job called motherhood involves lateral moves, promotions, demotions, re-orgs and budget cuts every few months, sometimes every week. None of these little people that you “manage” will follow a performance plan. Add a fresh team member to the mix and that throws off anything you’ve already established. They don’t care that your family goals are to be kind and generous to one another and others around you. If you have a call to make, or a “meeting" at the kitchen table with your spouse, you better believe they will respect no boundary and happily climb all over you, scream in your ear, and choose those moments to have an epic meltdown. And the best part, just when you think you have one of them figured out they change on you—potty-training regression, nap boycotts, one day they like mac ’n’ cheese and the next they hate it, sweet, polite angel turns into the devil’s spawn the next day—no consistency. Ever.

And it is EXHAUSTING. And that is NORMAL. Give yourself grace.

Before kiddos arrived I thought I had made progress in the area of control. I thought I had learned to release my expectations, or at least hold them loosely, and I had worked hard to accept that things will not always, in fact rarely, go the way I had planned or envisioned. But if I am honest with myself I got good at letting go of the things I knew I couldn’t control and happily controlled the things I could.

In the motherhood you control NOTHING. Give yourself grace.

After a few years of white-knuckling all the things to control—my oldest is 7 for crying out loud—I loosened my grip. I still struggle through this control thing A LOT, but I have adjusted and learned to give myself grace. This “job” is demanding and overwhelming, and you can’t just “leave it at the office.”

Give yourself grace and know that while it doesn’t necessarily get easier, it truly does change, and you get stronger and wiser. It’s okay to feel like nothing around you makes sense. It’s okay to feel completely overwhelmed by those little peoples’ emotions, and it’s certainly okay to be overwhelmed by your own. And when you promised yourself, God, and your children for the 976th time that you will not yell at them loud enough for the neighbors to hear only to do it again for the 977th time—give yourself grace. We are all in this journey wondering how to navigate these little people but also how to navigate ourselves. Lord knows, we are not the same women we were when we began the parenting journey.

So, give yourself grace.

Word of caution: giving yourself grace doesn’t mean all the excuses in the world to be a crappy mom—as I once tried to convince myself that it does. Remember that staff member who was always convinced that everyone else was the problem and they had nothing to do with it? Yeah, don’t be that guy in your mom role. But it does mean throw yourself a bone and just keep doing the best you can. You wouldn’t want your kiddo walking around thinking he’s the worst thing ever every time he does something wrong, right? So don’t do it to yourself.

This parenting thing is hard. It’s truly one of the hardest roles we live in and it’s one we will never not have. It’s with us always. But there is more than enough grace in this world for all of us to pull from.

So, give yourself grace and laugh at the things that drive you bonkers and hug those kiddos when they are on your last nerve. And when you need to, lock yourself in your room and tell them mom has left for a few minutes. There is enough grace for them too 😉