Overacheiver

At one point when my children were younger, I had three of them enrolled in a Mother’s Day Out program for two days per week. They attended class on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 to 2. Each Monday after I picked them up, we would go to the library, where each child got to choose the number of books corresponding to his or her age and then got a piece of candy from the nice librarian at check-out.

One particular Monday, it was a gray, rainy day. I could barely get inside the church where their program was held without getting soaked. I really didn’t feel like trying to take four kids to the library while keeping everyone dry.

So I entered Lindsey’s classroom with the intention of telling the kids that we wouldn’t make it to the library that day. Another mother was already in the room picking up her son. As Lindsey came to greet me, this other mom knelt down to zip up her son’s jacket.

“Looks nasty out there,” the kids’ teacher said, glancing outside, where the rain was beating against the windows.

And this other mother said to her son, “That’s right, we’re not going to be able to play outside today. So we’re going to go home, make a tent in the living room, and have hot cocoa and marshmallows instead. Won’t that be fun?”

Overachiever, I thought. Right on the heels of that negativity, I realized, There’s no reason to be negative. I could have done the same thing she did.

There are two points I want to make.

The first is this: my immediate reaction to the other mom’s words was negative. Instead of thinking, Wow, what a great idea! I thought, Oh, come on. Now I feel guilty about my decision. In other words, I had taken the easy way out, and I resented someone who was doing what I (here’s the second point) could just as well have done. Like she did, I could have turned the circumstances into an opportunity for fun.

It’s not necessarily bad to scrap plans for the library when the weather is nasty. But I wish I had had that other mom’s perspective. I wish I had realized on my own that the thing that messed up my plans was the very thing that could help me create some really special fun. I wish I had looked at changed circumstances as an opportunity rather than a loss.

If I had, I never would have compared her actions to mine and felt like I came up short. But whether or not I shared her creativity, I should never have had negative thoughts about the great idea she had. Her idea had nothing to do with me, and no, it didn’t make me look bad (even though it felt like it did). There was no reason to feel like I looked bad just because she planned something more creative, and even if I had, there was no reason to resent her for coming up with something I hadn’t thought of.

I’m not proud of my attitude, because it stems from pride. I want to be the best mommy. I don’t want to feel like my kids are getting the short end of the stick because someone else’s mommy plans better fun. I don’t want to feel “less than” some other mommy because she’s more creative or more fun or has more energy or whatever. And the thing of it is, I don’t have to. Neither do you.

There’s absolutely no reason to compare ourselves to other moms. Sure, if another mom has a good idea, we might want to incorporate that into our day or our family. But being down on ourselves just because our weakness compared unfavorably to someone else’s strength? Ridiculous. Not how God wants us to spend our time.

You see, He made each of us the way we are. He granted some abilities to me that you don’t have, and some abilities to you that I don’t have. He made some of us better at creativity and others of us better at organization. God doesn’t want us to compare ourselves to some other mom, because she is not the standard He has for our lives anyway.

Learn from her, yes. Imitate her? Maybe. But compare ourselves to her? No.

I’ve learned to be more creative over the years. If I were to find myself in the same situation today, I might very well have thought of something fun to do at home. But even if I hadn’t, I would no longer feel bad just because another mom thought of something I didn’t.

That’s because I now know that what makes me a good mom has nothing to do with how I compare to another mom or whether or not I do things the same way she does. I’m a good enough mom if I’m the best mom I can be—not if I’m someone else.

1 Samuel 17:38-39—Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. (NIV)