Bad Mother

I just finished the book "Bad Mother" by Ayelet Waldman, and would highly recommend it... I think everyone who is a mom feels like they are a bad mother at some point!!!

Just wanted to share two paragraphs out of it...

"We bad moms are happy to confess our sins because we're confident that those who come closest, and with the most sanctimony, to emulating the self-effacing, self-sacrificing, soft-spoken, cheerful, infinitely patient Good Mother are the real Bad Mothers. After all, what is a child like whose mother has selflessly devoted herself to his every need and desire? Is he thoughtful and kind, empathetic and liable to put others' needs before his own? Or is he so packed full of self-esteem, so conscious of his own sense of entitlement, that he is impossible to be around? Our children may wear unmatched socks, we trumpet, but they're better people than yours are."

"Even if I'm setting myself up for failure, I think it's worth trying to be a mother who delights in who her children are, in their knock-knock jokes and earnest questions. A mother who spends less time obsessing about what will happen, or what has happened, and more time reveling in what is. A mother who doesn't fret over failings and slights, who realizes that her worries and anxieties are just thoughts, the continuous chattering and judgment of a too busy mind. A mother who doesn't worry so much about being bad or good, but just recognizes that she's both, and neither. A mother who does her best, and for whom that is good enough, even if, in the end, her best turns out to be, simply, not bad."