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My family and I were walking home from dinner on a very chilly night this spring and my youngest and I kept stopping to look at this or that along the way. Noticing that we were behind he immediately would yell to his brother and dad ahead of us - “Wait Up!” but they couldn’t hear him.

“Let’s run and catch up to them,” I said, and off we went. Well, apparently he does not see me run very often because all of a sudden he’s there right beside me yelling, “Look! Mommy’s running, Mommy’s RUNNING!!!” squealing with delight.

Then his brother is jumping and laughing and squealing, “Look, Dad!! Look!” and I’m dying laughing because it's all so obvious - of course, I can run. I mean we all can run. I just choose not to because I don’t really like it, not to mention, what grown woman runs in heels with her kids? But boy was it fun to run with him - to laugh and connect and warm our bodies in the cold air.

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The honest truth is I have often chosen not to run with my kids, choosing to avoid what may end up being joyful and fun, for many years. Instead, I have chosen to strategically to stay on the sidelines and keep watch with my critical eye:

Did he just dismiss that kid?
Why does he have to always be so mean to his brother?
Was that a good way to intervene when they were fighting?
That mother handled that situation so much better than I ever will.
Why are there some parents who seem so happy and then there’s me?

Am I the only one who wakes up each morning just waiting for the other shoe to drop? Listening for children arguing down the hallway as I dress, or stepping on yet another lego they refused to clean up cursing my weakness as a parent all the way to the coffee pot. Yes, it's my first instinct to think things are not going well and that it’s my fault.

In this parenting story presented by my brain, now featuring!: Kids who are destined for therapy! And who will hate me when they were older! And forget the present - they will never listen to you no matter what you say!

If I were just a little bit better of a mom, if I just read one more book on parenting, then maybe things would line up and I would achieve mom greatness.

And so (fueled by endless amounts of caffeine) I became obsessed with child development.

I became the parenting-expert you were lucky to live next door to, the "Super Nanny” your friend bragged that she had snagged. And yes, I could pretty much tell you what was going on with your child if you asked. Totally helpful for my career as a nanny, not so helpful after telling my son “I love you no matter what” and his comeback was: "No don't you love me all the time - not when I'm sad or you're mad - I don't believe you.” #tearmyheartout

Determined to keep this hurt (this failure) from stopping me - I kept reading. Book after book after book, searching for clues. And every day I struggled to hold on as I tried “tips and tricks” and failed.

I lived in this cycle for years! My kids did something, I reacted. I immediately then treated myself like a failure and went looking for external help, clinging to workshops and expert advice and when that didn’t work immediately I would lose my sh*t again - which perpetuated the cycle.

The more I read about their little brains and their development, the more empathy I developed for their struggles. I also discovered just how hard it was to play catch up as their brains and bodies grew through substantial leaps and I pretty much stayed the same.

Here I was arriving each morning with the same baggage from my childhood traumas: my negative self-worth and self-talk, my thirst to be the "Perfect Mother”. And all along I was constantly looking outside myself longing for the perfect solution to my Good Mom/Bad Mom cycle.

The struggle was indeed real, and it was even happening to me - the Super Nanny.

The books had failed me, they never addressed my experience, only what my children were about to go through. The goal of being a perfect mother is not reachable and I didn’t realize I had been trapped inside my good intentions all along. I wasn’t the perfect mother and I was never going to be.

We all have childhood stories that make us different from other people, partners who have different styles then we do, interfering yet well-meaning family members, and friends who make it look easy.

Parenting is a constant and evolving process and you need to decide what you want out of the relationship. As the Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield says at baby blessings: “You now have a live-in Zen Master - they are here to help you grow”. It’s never going to be over, your kids will always be your kids and every day they offer you an opportunity for deep and reflective self-growth.

I have come to look at it as a practice in true authentic self-care more than anything else. At the beginning of this self-care practice, I softened my intention to be a “Perfect Mother” to just becoming a better parent for my kids. But now after many years of practice, my intention is to just be happy.

And most days I am. I surprise myself with how far I’ve come every day and I stand in amazement - really in awe - at how good it feels to be ok with imperfection.

Don’t expect to come to my house and see me interacting with my kids like some magical Mary Poppins because that will be very far from what you see. We have plenty of days where we argue and I yell and things are really hard. But the difference is that those days don’t define me anymore. I can brush off a “You’re so mean”. I can meet my children where they are and support them in a way that sends me deeper into the circular practice of gratitude and contentment.

My intention to be happy is stronger than my intention for perfection ever was because I look for the good in every day and I reflect on what went right and not on what went wrong. Because there is a difference between wishing things would change and intending to make those changes within yourself.

My goal is to help you to begin the process of shifting the type of parenting that you do now to something a little bit different, something that may result in your being a little bit happier. It may not be better right away, but we all learn through experience, growth doesn’t happen overnight. So what is your intention - what are you ready to stop wishing for and make a practice instead?

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