Tell me how great your kids/spouse/dog/friends are

A quick word on bragging

I’m going to make this short because I’m headed out the door soon for a weekend away with my oldest daughter. It’ll be her first overnight away from her son, and we’re traveling across the state to watch some volleyball together. It’ll be fun and a little stressful.

In my packing and sorting of belongings as we prepare to move, I keep coming across old notes and journals I’ve saved. If I were the Me of Twenty Years Ago, all these journals would be in one place, organized by year. And if I were the Me of My Dreams, the journals would all be the same size and color¹. Alas, I am the Me of Today, and she doesn’t spend her time that way.

In one journal I found a note about motherhood, a topic which has consumed my life for twenty-eight years now. The note was from about eight years ago, and when I wrote it I probably thought it mostly applied to moms of littles. I don’t have littles anymore, and I think it still applies:

You are going to have days when you feel like the biggest failure, as a mom. Days when you yelled your frustrations or overlooked the valuable things or were just too tired to do the right things. In the thick of it, you will sometimes feel like these are the only kind of days you ever have. I’m telling you—that is not true.

You need a place to record all the wonderful things that happen in spite of your bad days. Write them down. Or speak them into a voice memo. Start a blog. Whatever. Record all the good things because your brain will want to slink back to the bad things too often, too much.

And find friends, even just one, who will let you brag about your kids without shame. Find a friend who asks you to brag, who welcomes it without judgement or comparison.

Brag about your kids because, in spite of everything, they truly are wonderfully made and uniquely gifted, and you can’t screw that up. You can’t. Even that wayward one—none of us have “turned out” yet and if you love the way they work hard or have a soft-spot for the overlooked people—you can brag about that.

There is so much more to motherhood than this, and I’m not saying we should gloss over the negative stuff. I do still roll my eyes when my own mom brags about me, but I also love that she sees so much good. I just wanted to set this thought down here for the mom who might need it—if you need an open door to brag about your kids: granted.

Anyone you are in close proximity to, in relationship with, is fair game for bragging. I hope you have a friend who wants to hear how great your husband is, your kids, your grandkids, your dog. You are free to gush, here. We all know people are hard, and we are people, and we can complain a lot. But you are not doing everything wrong, and neither are your people.

Walk #10/50

1. This truly is one of my biggest beefs with myself. If I have to go to a deserted island, please send me with all my random journals and notebooks, and let me spend my isolation transcribing them into new, black, A5 Moleskines, with the dot grids. Thanks.