MASTER MOM

Pearl of the day: Parenting, Perfectly Imperfect

The controversial spiritual leader, Osho Rajneesh proffered the pearl “the moment a child is born, the mother is also born. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something new.”

Being a mother is an entirely new experience. Many moms seek the unattainable level of perfection in so many areas of their life including being a perfect mom.

I’ve learned that to become a master in anything, it takes at least 10,000 practice hours. One theory suggests a five-step development process to be a “master” in any area, which are: Novice, Advanced Beginner, Competence, Proficient, and Expert.

Supposedly, it takes about 10 – 15 years to move from novice to expert. So in essence, you can never be a master of parenting in the exact age that your child is. For your child is only of that age for one year and if you change a variable, like the child, it is an impossible aim. You can have 10 -15 kids yet still never be an expert because each child is different.

Hopeless? Definitely not! Parenting is a lifelong journey. Even Olympians falter.

You continually learn how to parent your child. There are a few things I actually have mastered as a parent, I definitely know my A,B,C’s, can sing a thousand renditions of the “wheels on the bus” and name numerous animals on Old MacDonald’s farm but the rest is a constant learning process for my kids constantly change.

Yet moms are tapped to be the gurus of everything. From fixing boo boos to staying on top of the kids scheduling, school work and knowing all the answers or at least pointing the kids in the right direction to hunt down the answers.

Few of us actually pursue one thing long enough to gain the deserving title of master. Yet parenthood is something that is done and practiced every day and can always be improved. One area is leading your children through the mastery steps.

My son has mastered his Thomas The Train puzzle but when I introduced a new one albeit a more challenging puzzle, he was first excited, then as he sat down he realized he didn’t know how to do it, he shied away from it, circled around me and only began tackling it when I had put together a good portion.

Parenting is an imperfect profession and we do the best we can in pursuit of being a black belt momma.

Additional resources on Psychology:
“Stages of Mastery” - http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/edpsyc/stgmstry.html

ABC's Modern Family episode "En Garde" is a brilliant look at Mastery.

Copyright © 2010 Cynthia Litman d/b/a Tigris Imprints. All Rights Reserved.