Sara Blakely Just Made Motherhood Real

Sara Blakely just made motherhood real and I can’t thank her enough for it. It was ‘Dress Yourself Like a Vocabulary Word’ day and she missed the email, the memo and inevitably her kid’s costume. All the kids paraded around dressed up like words and her sweet little guy walked head down, holding his teacher’s hand, not in a costume, but in a t-shirt and shorts. She shared her pain and I wanted to cry with her, but I kind of wanted to high-five her too.

I will never forget when it was time to sign up for Mystery Reader in my middle daughter’s kindergarten classroom. New to the school and obviously a little slow, I missed the meaning behind the mystery in Mystery Reader. Week after week parents would come in wearing costumes that completely covered up their identity leaving the fun guessing game of, which parent is inside the costume? There was a life-size lizard, a de-contamination suit like the one in Monsters Inc. and a firefighter wearing gear from head to toe.

Each week seemed to outdo the last until it was my husband’s turn. Still not putting together the mystery in Mystery Reader, my husband walked into the classroom wearing his work clothes, smile from ear-to-ear, ready to read a story. I stood at the side of the classroom, camera in hand, waiting to capture the joy in my daughter’s eyes. As I started snapping pictures I noticed the joy I was looking for quickly turned to tears. It hit me instantly. I had failed. The mystery in Mystery Reader was no longer a mystery to me.

I felt horrible, stupid and embarrassed all in one humongous package. All I wanted to do was hit rewind, go to the costume store and rent the biggest and best Mystery Reader costume I could find. I don’t remember how the day ended, but I’m sure it included tears, spewing guilt and ice cream. And for the record, that wasn’t my daughter, that was me.

But here is what I have learned in almost 19-years of parenting flubs…

Mistakes are REAL life, perfection is not. When we make mistakes, we have been given a GOLDEN opportunity to own them, take responsibility, apologize and then get up and try again. BECAUSE IN THAT MOMENT WE ARE ROLE MODELING REAL LIFE! Our kids will make mistakes, but if all they have seen is a portrait of the perfect parent, they will have no idea what to do when they aren’t perfect. On the other hand, if all they have seen is a self-beat down for the mistakes their parents have made, they will learn to do the same.

We now laugh about the Mystery Reader minus the mystery, but if I had to do it again I don’t think I would have changed a thing. My reactions to my imperfections have taught my kids that mistakes are inevitable, but how we react to them is invaluable. If mom makes a mistake, apologizes, learns from it and tries again, so can I.

Mamas, let’s make a pact to stop beating ourselves up when we make a mistake. Instead, let’s use our mistakes to teach our kids about real life. That gift is better than any costume we could ever give them!

For more parenting read my book, The Parenting Backpack.