I don’t know any stay-at-homes, I’m not knocking it either, most moms I know are holding down a job in some form while raising their children. Some jobs are more flexible than others, maybe you work for yourself, say as a dog groomer. Or your like me, you hold down a 9 hour shift 5 days a week, luckily I have weekends off at my current job. It is TOUGH to do it all. I work a nightshift so I miss out on doing homework with D, I miss parent teacher conferences, and worst of all, D told me the other day that she felt like I didn’t love her because I hardly see her during the week. (The furthest from the truth!)

It is a struggle to find that balance between being a “good mom” and being a good employee at work. And who makes the standards of who is a good mom anyways? As working moms we are torn between are parenting duties, work duties, and as I am realizing, my wifie duties. I believe it is impossible to do it all perfectly. I use to beat myself up for wanting a career. I felt like people were judging me for uprooting my daughter to travel across Texas to advance my career. Because of that fear I tried extra hard to be the best mom I could be, or what I thought a good mom should be.

When D was 4 years-old I really felt I had it down. D and I had a solid routine. Work 9am-6pm. Pick up D from her afterschool program, hit the gym for an hour. Dinner was simmering in a crockpot all day so we had dinner when we got home. Homework after dinner then bed. Repeat. Weekends I packed in hiking adventures, swimming in creeks and watching wrestling at a friends house that allowed me to bring D. I didn’t need anyone else in my life, until I did.

C created a new challenge, and I say that lovingly, a new chapter in my “Mommy diaries.” He had to learn quickly how to be a parent, since he was coming into D’s life when she was 5 years-old and he had no children prior. What I saw in their relationship taught me alot about my own relationship with D and the standards I had created as a single mom.

C does not follow any rules as a step-dad. He doesn’t plan, which drives me nuts, but what he does do is very simple, he is there. Take a look at the video below he took of the first time he took D to see the Mets play at Citifield. They are having a blast jumping around. Totally a raw moment, but a simple example of his parenting style.

In the beginning when we were still dating, C would offer to pick D up from after school while I was still working. He would spend 2-3 hours with her at the park playing games and talking about her day until I picked them up and we would go to dinner. This is where their relationship grew, on a playground. Now that we live together, that parenting style has carried over. He is playful and knows better than I how to get on her level. He asks her what she wants to do, and if it’s something different than what he planned, he changes the plan. I had made this box in which I lived in and had trained myself to believe that that was what success meant as a mom. I was missing the big picture. Success as a parent, I believe now, is understanding your child. Listening to what they want and their feelings. It is ok to have expectations and rules, but it’s also ok to not meet those expectations, and to break the rules. This was a foreign concept to me, and something that I still haven’t fully grasped.

I never claim to know it all when it comes to parenting, but what I think we can do better as parents, is listen and learn. Watching C become the awesome step-dad that he is opened my eyes to what I wasn’t doing and ways I could improve as a mom. You can read parenting books or blogs but until you see how you can do it better, you may not believe you need to make changes. I am still learning how to not take myself so seriously, or how to not impose such high expectations on D. C is helping me make those changes, and hopefully those changes will help me be a better mom, whatever that means.