Two-Faced Perfection

December 13, 2013

Two-Faced Perfection

In the last couple of weeks, I have heard at least four or five women say: "X happened. I've failed as a mother." It seems such a strange thing to say, as most of the people I know have very young, bright, healthy children. They are not poor, not struggling with alcohol or drug addiction, not in prison, not abusing their kids. So why do so many of us feel like we're not hitting the mark?

This time of year you have to (in addition to all of your normal meals, rituals and responsibilities):

1. Get/make nativity costumes and go to the plays
2. Visit Santa
3. Buy gifts
4. Make food that looks beautiful
5. Make decorations for yourself and others
6. Buy a bunch of extra stuff you normally would never buy
7. Plan everything ahead
8. Visit lots of people

AND you have to do it all in a festive sweater with a Pinterest-worthy photo to mark every tiny occasion without gaining any weight or getting drunk on copious amounts of mulled wine. Note: I'm so sorry pregnant ladies that you cannot drink this time of year. The trade-off is that no one will think you are eating too many cookies or mince pies.

We're sold on this idea of Christmas perfection that doesn't exist!

Sometimes, as mothers or just as people, we want to throw in the towel and bury our head in the sand.

We may feel like the world and our friends are just smacking us around.

We may think we are missing the mark completely.

Christmas can even make it worse!

Thomas Edison had about 10,000 goes at creating the light bulb, but no one looks at him and says: "WOW! What a complete failure!" Maybe we need 10,000 tries to be a good person. In fact, I think we need to heed Edison's own quote:

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

We are so close to success all the time! We look at others and all we see is how amazing they are and how easy it is for them. However, we need to remember that often success and perfection are two-faced.

I love it when people say, "Wendy you're so good and talented. You've got it all together!"