You’re Doing Better Than You Think You Are

When she was 8 months old, I dropped our first daughter on her head. It was actually more of a gentle bump on the carpeted floor since I managed to get a hold of her by the legs before impact, but to me, it felt like I let her fall ten stories onto concrete. Bless the nurse at the pediatrician’s office for handling my near-incoherent retelling of the incident while said baby, whose tears stopped almost instantly, watched me curiously. In spite of everyone reminding me she was fine and that it was an accident, I felt like the world’s worst mother for a long time.

A couple of years later, after saying goodbye to our elated family members the evening our youngest was born, we settled in for our first night with this brand-new little person. Having done this newborn thing before, our confidence rested comfortably in the “We’ve got this!” realm. But just a few short hours later, a nurse came in and asked for the standard what’s in the diaper " report. My husband and I looked at each other sheepishly. Neither of us had remembered how frequently an infant needed to be changed, and hadn’t bothered to check on things in that department. We failed our first parenting test with her before she was even a day old. 

I could fill pages with stories of parenting mistakes my husband and/or I have made through the years like getting rid of toys I was certain wouldn’t be missed but were mourned for weeks, making one of our girls walk on a broken leg for two days before getting a second x-ray, grounding them both much longer than necessary at times, and letting them get away with more than we should have at others. Although some things we were able to laugh about soon after, more often than not, we spent far too much time blaming ourselves for falling short. 

Albert Einstein once said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” Think about that in terms of parenting. On any given day, whether you have one child or five, parenting is a brand-new endeavor with a fresh set of circumstances, behaviors, and needs. Even if you’ve been through the “terrible twos” multiple times with other kids, this particular child is not a carbon copy of any of them, so you’re figuring it out for the first time all over again. We set unrealistic expectations to be a perfect parent and find out quickly, sometimes within hours of arrival, that it’s absolutely impossible.

Most parents I know, myself included, are so hard on themselves. Every misstep is recorded in permanent ink as a failure of epic proportions that will surely damage our kids irreparably. Why is it that the grace we so quickly extend to others we stubbornly withhold from ourselves? If another parent told me about making mistakes with their kids, I’d automatically respond with empathy, not the criticism I readily dish out toward myself.

Think about the way we approach failure with our kids. We assure them that no one is perfect, and mistakes are an inevitable part of life. We teach them how to be accountable for their words and actions, and what it looks like to repair what’s been broken when we hurt others. When they try something new and fail, we coach them to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and try again. Following the lessons we share with our own children is a great place to start in learning how to give ourselves grace.         

I’m reminded of something a great friend of mine says from time to time in the Bible study she leads, “You’re doing better than you think you are.” It’s such a simple statement, but I think it offers a powerful message of encouragement for us as parents. When we quickly dish out criticism toward ourselves and get stuck there, it prevents us from seeing clearly the many ways we parent well. The truth is that for every time we fall short, there are so many more times we hit the mark. For every moment any of us has lost our patience and yelled, thrown away something we didn’t think was important to our kids, skipped bedtime prayers, or put personal convenience in front of doing the hard thing as a parent, we’ve cared for them over and over in so many godly and loving ways. 

So, the next time you feel like all you do as a parent is make mistakes, remember, “You’re doing better than you think you are!”