Beliefs about Motherhood: Am I doing this right?

Am I doing this right? As a mom, that is a question I ask myself on a daily basis. Whether it’s about disciplining tactics or sleep training or if the organic cheez-puffs are really that much better for my kids, motherhood has been a type of training-in-progress for me, I learn as I go along. Life as a mom and “CEO” of a household is challenging enough and between juggling work, kids responsibilities, wondering if I’m parenting in a way that my kids will need therapy for, and trying to look presentable at the same time, I’m always wondering – am I doing this right?

My eternal struggle for finding balance between my work life and my home life is difficult to navigate around. While I immensely value and recognize my contribution to my family as a mom, it is important to me personally to contribute to myself through my career as well. And seeking this kind of balance has presented its fair share of obstacles along the way. Once, on a day when my kids were home, I had to participate on an important client conference call – important calls and kids at home don’t complement each other that well. I actually had to run, yes run, down the hall away from my toddler daughter so that her high pitched screeches wouldn’t filter through the phone. As I sat breathless behind the bed, literally hiding from her, I rushed through my updates so that I could retreat back into my “safe” mode on mute.

Surely a comical sight now, but at that moment, it was the choice I had to make. I’ve learned over the years that that is what motherhood is about. It’s about the moment-to-moment. It’s about making the decisions that I think are right at the time and believing in them. I know I’ll look back and have regrets about certain ways I handled situations, or things I could have said differently, but it is in the collection of these moments that I define myself as a mom, a wife, and a woman.

There are so many joys and challenges that come with being a mom and I don’t have all the answers. No one said it would be easy and no one said it would be fun all the time. But what I’ve learned so far is that “right” means many different things at many different times. So, being a good mom to me is having the confidence and believing, yes, I AM doing this right.