It sometimes seems like the more we learn, the more we realize two things:
- We don’t know a flippin’ thing
- We’re not certain about anything anymore and that feeling adds stress to our lives
When we’re just starting out in life, we pretend to know everything. We act as if we have all the answers and sometimes guess correctly. When we aren’t right, we may have panicked, berated ourselves, and apologized. We may have been embarrassed with our choices and covered up our mistakes. We vowed to try harder, know more, and have all the answers.
Does this sound anything like you when you were just starting out as a young adult?
Like a toddler mimicking an older sibling, we eventually learned to use a fork without spilling on ourselves. In other words, we made it through entire days without making one mistake, or so we thought. But to be honest, we just became really good at hiding the fact that we “spilled on the carpet” every day.
Then we became parents – another learning curve. In the beginning, we read tons of books and asked questions of experts and mothers whom we admired and respected. Like a child gathering candy under a broken piñata, we scooped up information like it was our last chance to learn all we needed to know for a lifetime of parenting.
Some of the situations we deal with may be similar to something our friend went through last year. But there’s only one unique combination of you, your child, and your life circumstances. Then we realize our children are unique.
The decisions we make for our children are based on our experiences, our comfort levels, their needs and wants, our life circumstances, what we know, what we don’t know, and so much more. There are no right answers and there doesn’t seem to be a right way to do any of this.
Parenting can be daunting. If there aren’t any right answers, how can we know what to do? I’ve been a mother for 20 years and with each passing year, I realize the best decisions I’ve ever made were made from intuition fed by knowledge – not knowledge alone.
One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is letting go of the need to know all the answers and be the expert.
We know you have plenty of knowledge and life experience. But if not knowing is just as acceptable as having all the answers, you’ll have more fun with motherhood in the future and less worry over being the perfect parent.
Try these tips when you don’t have a clue:
- Be confident. Adopt the perspective that you always make the best decision based on the information you have in that moment.
- Free yourself. Let go of looking like you have it all figured out and your mom-guilt. It’s exhausting.
- Tell the truth. If you don’t know what to do or which decision is best, admit it.
- Embrace flexibility. Remember, most decisions can be changed or modified and be willing to make a change, if necessary.
- Enlist your child’s help. When appropriate, ask your child what he or she thinks or wants and take it into consideration.
- Trust your instincts. Trust that feeling in your gut. A mother’s intuition is usually correct.
It’s OK to be clueless.
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