My children need influence and inspiration.
They need a model, not a martyr.
My children need guidance and support.
They need a model, not a saint.
My children need a safe place to rest and find comfort.
They need a model, not a hero.
My children need to see authenticity and emotion.
They need a model, not perfection.
My children need to understand pain, and loss, and hardships.
They need a model, not a warrior.
My children need to understand fear, and stress, and anxiousness.
They need a model, not a champion.
My children need to adapt to life and change, not be shielded from it.
They need a model, not a martyr.
They need a mother that will embrace flaws and imperfections as much as a mother who celebrates success and wins. They need a mother who will embrace mistakes and effort, as much as a mother who celebrates individuality and uniqueness.
They need a mother.
Not a martyr. Not a pain-taker. Not an experience buffer.
Not a wound preventer. Not flawlessness or perfection.
They need me, in all of my glory, but the beautiful and the flawed.
They need an experienced and imperfect woman who has grown, transformed, and succeeded through the hardships and pain. They need to see a mother who had the faith to keep going. A woman who had the grit to keep trying. A woman who never stopped believing, in herself, in her family, in the beauty of the world.
They need a mother, not a martyr, and that’s what they’ll get. Every. Single. Day.
