I’m lucky as a stay at home mama that my husband can come home most days for lunch. When he comes home for lunch, it means that I can get a few minutes truly to myself to recharge before the afternoon. A few minutes to pee without someone using that as the exact moment to injure themselves or someone else, to just sit down without being needed, or just to know that there’s another adult around may not sound like a huge thing, but those few minutes make me a better parent and a better person. He’s the water station in my daily marathon.
This week, I haven’t gotten that break and by Friday afternoon I can feel it. I’m not being my best self. I’m not being the best parent.
This morning we played outside all morning because the high today is supposed to near 100 Fahrenheit. After wrangling all the worn out hungry kiddos out of the inflatable pools and into the house, mopping up the wet footprints and hanging up the wet suites and towels and redressing everyone, I didn’t have it in me to make lunch that 2/3 of my picky eaters probably wouldn’t eat. Also I was cranky. I decided it would be easier to load up and take the kids to Runza. I realize it sounds insane to intentionally take exhausted children out to eat in a public place rather than staying home, but some twisted logic in me hoped that maybe the novelty of eating in the restaurant would help everyone hold it together until naptime.
Since my kids normally eat pretty early, Runza was blessedly mostly empty except for one older gentleman who said “Hi, kids,” as we passed him on the way to the counter to order. We got everyone’s kid’s meal ordered and drinks filled, the oldest helped the middle use the bathroom while I paid, and when the food came I distributed the chicken nuggets and applesauce and mini oranges and French fries, unwrapped straws and spoons and positioned napkins and made sure drinks were out of spill range and bites were cut to the appropriate sizes and I’m not going to lie, I felt like a superhero octopus with eight arms.
And miraculously, everything was going relatively smoothly. No one was screaming just to see if they could hear their own echo or climbing on their chair like a jungle gym or throwing anything or spilling anything. The excitement of eating in a novel place and being able to see the water park slides across the street did the trick and we had about as civilized a meal as a lone parent with a two, four, and nine year old can have in a public place.
The older gentleman who had been eating in the corner got up to take his tray to the trashcan, which happened to be next to our booth.
“You must be doing something right,” he said as he placed his tray on top of the wooden trash receptacle. “Your kids are very well mannered.”
I’m not going to lie. A real part of me, the part of me that barely survived the past week, almost snorted.
But I didn’t. I smiled and I thanked him.
“I was in the doctor’s office last week with my wife,” he continued, “and there was a woman with four kids there. They were jumping from one chair to the other, throwing magazines. The mother just sat in the corner the whole time.”
I gave him an empathetic cringe.
“I’m just saying,” he finished. “It restores some of my faith, you know? To see well-behaved kids. I have respect for what you’re doing.”
I thanked him again and he left.
Compliments are a powerful thing, friends. In that moment, sitting in Runza, one stranger’s compliment pulled me out of an exhausted funk and made me look at my children, at myself, differently. It reminded me of the power we can have over each other, to lift someone up or bring them down, and wonder why we don’t use that power for good more.
The reality is, people don’t really compliment others on their parenting very often, which perhaps isn’t surprising. Commenting on something as personal, as wrought with emotion, as parenting is a risky business. For example, commenting on someone’s parenting often contains underhanded criticism (either unintentional or otherwise) of someone else’s parenting. The man in Runza offered me a compliment because he was comparing me to the woman in the waiting room at the doctor’s office.
But here’s the thing. I’ve been that woman in the waiting room. We all have. This week in Runza my children were miraculously well behaved, but last week in a similar situation they had screamed to hear their own echo, climbed the chairs like a jungle gym, spilled a drink and dropped an ice cream cone. No one complimented me on my parenting that day and frankly if they had I would have assumed sarcasm.
And yet, I felt like the same parent in both situations. Was one of those versions of my parenting self more deserving of a compliment than the other? Perhaps what made the compliment from the man in Runza most meaningful didn’t have anything to do with my parenting style or my children’s behavior. It was simply that someone noticed that I was trying.
None of us are perfect parents. I’m certainly not. And even if there was a miraculously perfect parent somewhere in the world, I’d venture to guess that their children were still messy, imperfect little human beings who sometimes embarrassed their parents in public because that’s the nature of being a child who is learning and growing and figuring it out as they go.
Whether my children are acting like zoo animals or angels in the restaurant, one thing will always be true: I’m trying. I’m trying to be a good parent. Sometimes other people can see the evidence of my efforts and sometimes they can’t. But I’m always trying.
So I guess my point is just this: don’t measure your worth as a parent in the behavior of your children. If no stranger in Runza stops you to notice that you’re trying, become that person for yourself. If you’re trying to be a good parent, if you’re trying to raise these messy little imperfect humans up into bigger humans who are still messy and imperfect but also kind and thoughtful and good, then you’re doing great. If you’re trying to be a good parent, then you are one.