Dear Mama,
You catch yourself, don’t you? You find yourself wanting to tell the whole world about the way your two year old can say her abc’s. You want to post a photo of your 9 year old winning his golf tournament. You feel like you want to tout the fact that your kid just made the Varsity team. Or that the girl of yours in her teens, she is just an incredible girl.
But you catch yourself. Because while it’s perfectly okay and acceptable to commiserate with other parents… it feels like the same can’t be said for talking your kid up. For singing their praises. For telling the world about what makes your kid awesome.
Because of social media, we live in a world where it is somehow affronting another to sing songs of praise. While it seems perfectly acceptable to complain about our offspring and how they make us drink wine or how they make us lose our shit but the second we talk about the way Timmy ties his shoes, there’s a huge internet eye roll. So the lesson learned by a seasoned mama, don’t tell the internet something if you don’t want to have opinions. And as long as you remember the internet has opinions, share away.
Because… guess what…. here goes… KIDS ARE AWESOME. They may very well be the very best part of life {says a woman who has them.}. And it should be perfectly socially acceptable to say my kid is awesome. It should be okay to say he kicked the heck out the soccer ball today or we’re so stinkin’ proud of her for getting a full ride to college. But somehow… that’s perceived as bragging. Or one-upping. Or even worse… being overly proud.
I think if there is anything in our lives that should be okay to have pride in, it’s our littles. And if you, like me, have found yourself struggling with truly praising them in a way that shares with the people you know personally just how wonderful those littles of yours are, then as I often say, elsa that sitch. Let. It. Go.
I think there’s this perception that if I share something about my kid … whether it’s about their personality… their reading capability… their humor… their athletic ability… their intellect… their musical talent… their ability to say the alphabet backward… their life… somehow, I’m saying I think they’re better than your kid.
Well… first of all… let’s all agree that to some degree, we do think our own kids are the greatest kids we’ve ever had because they are in fact the greatest humans we’ve parented. Right? Right. So while our own kids can and do drive us to drink and swear and commiserate and so on and so forth… they also cause us to be more proud, more grateful, more blessed, than we’ve possibly ever felt. But that doesn’t mean that we think your kids also aren’t amazing. So there’s that.
And second… just because I say my kid is an incredible maker of homemade pasta, I’m not saying your kid should be able to make pasta. I am also not saying that your kid couldn’t also make pasta in an amazing fashion. And I’m definitely definitely not stating that my kid is the very best pasta maker known to man. What I am saying? My kid, in my opinion, is an incredible maker of pasta. And I’m proud of him.
So your kid is truly gifted? Or mildly gifted? Or average? Or below average? But whatever they are out of those choices, you are proud of? Here’s what I say: Surround yourself with a tribe that allows you to sing that shit from the rooftops.
I apologized the other day before telling someone that I was really freakin’ proud of my kid’s running times. Because I didn’t want them to think I was bragging. And you know what my friend said back, “Why would you apologize? He’s awesome. And you can say he’s awesome. All our kids are awesome. Why shouldn’t we talk about them being great kids?” YES. YES. YES. I love that friend;).
+And of note… these people that support your excitement over your kids do not have to have kids themselves… don’t think that you can’t share excitement over your kid because someone doesn’t have them. Sometimes my friends who don’t have kids are more excited over my kids than me. Because… awesomesauce.
So mama, if you’re feeling like you’re in this place where you can’t publicly praise your kids, well, let’s get back to basics. Let’s stop feeling like it’s only socially acceptable to dog on our offspring {which. Yes. I totally think it’s acceptable to complain.} and instead welcome people’s praises of their kids, right? Let’s tell people,
“I know your kids are awesome! Please tell me about them! Tell me when they poop on the potty! Text me and say, “Okay guys… I just need to tell someone that little Timmy picked up all his toys without having a meltdown!” Tell me how proud you were and what the teacher said at their parent teacher conference! Tell me how they were the third kid picked for some sign in your yard! Or how they were the first kid picked for a basketball team! Tell me that they get to leave the classroom for special classes! Or how far they’ve come in a year! Tell me about your beautiful babies and their big deals. Because if we’re really friends, the big deals to you are also a big deal to me.”
Mama. Your kid {or kids are…} is awesome. And that’s perfectly fine by me. In fact, it’s better than fine. Let’s keep spreading the happiness and the goodness of these people. It’s totally wonderful that we are all raising humans who, although they do funny things, things we totally get annoyed with, things that make for humorous memes and such, they also change our own little corner of the world. And completely amaze us every day. The world could do better to know that people who have no idea they are supposed to be awesome, just naturally are.
You are rocking motherhood. And just because you want to talk about your kids, it doesn’t mean that you are saying you are awesome. Besides. We already know that anyway…
xoxo-
Ashli
