How can we stay-at-home Moms redefine our relationships with our kids

Posted by Melissa Chapman Jul 20, 2006

I am really excited about this next part of the series, because I think it's an issue that all of us SAHM's can use some help with.

As a stay-at-home Mom myself, I know that I put a lot of pressure on myself to try and be as close to the "perfect" Mom as I can be. Of course it's an impossible standard for anyone to reach, but I guess I feel that, since I'm "home all day with my kids," and that is "supposed" to be the focus of my life, I would even be so bold as to call it my career, therefore I should have kids who are the picture of perfection. Right?!

What I'm trying to convey with all my "perfection talk" and my liberal use of "quotation marks" is that I think that built into the role of being a stay-at-home Mom, I (having bought into society's expectations of how I'm suppoosed to act and the types of kids I'm supposed to raise as a SAHM) believe my kids should be well-behaved, eat with gusto, their entire plates laden with fresh veggies and fruit and of course listen intently and follow all of our family's ground rules. And most importantly when we are together in public, there should never be any outburst of any kind from either one of them.

As I write this down I realize how utterly insane these self-imposed standards of mine are, which I'm sure, much to my dismay, many other stay-at-home Moms share with me. I guess my line of thinking is that, if I am the parent who is at home with my children most of the time, as opposed to a Mom/parent who works outside of the home (like my husband who sees them at breakfast, and before they go to bed) everything about their personalities is a direct reflection of how good a job of mothering I'm doing. If they act like wild, bratty kids at times, then I really do feel that I'm at fault, since I'm a stay-at-home Mom and all of my time, energy and my very person is supposed to be poured into shaping these kids.

But the truth is, us stay-at-home Moms- MYSELF included- need to give ourselves a little breathing room. Despite the fact that we might be home with our children, more than a parent who works outside the home, it doesn't mean that our kids need to be perfect. It is impossible for anyone to be perfect at anything- especially when it involves dealing with other human beings- who can be a lot less predictable and a lot harder to discipline than, it might be to work at an office with other like-minded adults. Us stay-at-home Moms need to realize that it's okay- and actually better for us and our kids to let ourselves not be perfect, in fact to learn how to live with our lives little imperfections.

And that's why I'm proposing in my next article that we stay-at-home Moms need to redefine our relationships with our kids. In doing so, we will let ourselves off the hook, and our kids will be grateful that they're being given room to just be kids and that their best is good enough. In fact, their best is "PERFECT."