Dear Daughter,
This last weekend was Mother’s Day. As we were driving home from celebrating at your grandma’s house, I was thinking about the day and what a lot of moms want from their husbands for Mother’s Day. It seems to me that mostly moms want help. Because mothering is hard work. They want someone to entertain the kids so they can drink a cup of coffee in peace for a moment or read a book. They want someone else to cook a meal, pick up the toys, put the kids to bed.
And beyond that, they want to feel acknowledged for the hard work of mothering they do. They want to feel appreciated. They want to feel seen. And it wouldn’t hurt to be a little spoiled sometimes. Flowers. A pedicure. A card.
Here’s the thing about your dad: he treats me like it is Mother’s Day every day. He works hard every day at his job so that I can stay home and be with you kids. And then he comes home and helps cook meals and feed you. He plays and gives baths and reads bedtime stories and picks up the house that went through a toy explosion while he was away at work. He loads the dishwasher and he helps with laundry and he takes out trash. And he checks on me, to see if I need a break or a cup of coffee. He encourages me to schedule a massage or go have a drink with my friends.
And that’s not all. He tells me daily that I’m doing a good job, that I’m a good mom, that he appreciates me.
Sometimes I feel guilty because he is so good to me. I feel like I don’t deserve it. I feel like I should do more, that he shouldn’t have to help as much as he does.
But the truth is, I think this is how it should be.
We should be with people who want to help us. Who make helping and loving and appreciating a daily habit. It shouldn’t be something that we do for each other one day a year.
I love that your dad is so good to me. But the best part isn’t simply how well he treats me. The best part is that he makes me want to be better.
When he comes home from work and selflessly takes care of us, he gives me the strength to be selfless. When he is kind to me even when I’m not perfect, it inspires me to be more kind. When he is generous and attentive and loving he makes me want to be generous and kind and loving.
Your dad never, ever tells me I’m not doing enough. Even when he comes home to a messy house and kids still in their pajamas and no plan for dinner, he gives me a hug and tells me I’m a great mom and he makes sandwiches for everyone and then takes you kids out into the back yard so that I can catch my breath for a moment.
He never, ever tells me I’m not enough.
I’ve had relationships where I was criticized for my imperfections. It’s an easy habit to adopt when you’re in a close relationship with someone else–to find things that frustrate you. In fact, I would even say it’s inevitable. When you live with someone and are close to them, you will see the best and worst parts of them. And when you’re comfortable enough to live with someone, it’s easy to be very honest in sharing your complaints.
Before your dad, I thought it was a perfectly normal part of a relationship–to air your complaints about each other. But the truth is, when other people told me all the ways I was failing, it mostly just made me feel bad. It made me want to do better, but not because I actually wanted to be better. I just didn’t want to feel bad about it anymore.
But having someone who loves me unconditionally–who not only accepts me as a flawed human but is actually grateful for who I am as a flawed human–that makes me better. It makes me more aware, more generous, more grateful. Being loved like that builds you up. It changes you.
And it has changed me. I’m unbelievably grateful to be loved like that. But I’m even more grateful that he is teaching me how to love like that. Because I know that, in doing so, we will teach you how to love and be loved like that.
And what more could a parent want for their children, than for them to know that they deserve to be loved in a way that builds them up and makes them better for it?
The world does a pretty thorough job of telling us how we should be. As you grow, you will probably be surrounded by messages of how your body should look and your house should look and your car should look. Messages telling you what kind of parent you should be and what kind of wife you should be. My hope for you is that you find someone who chooses not to add to your list of “shoulds” and instead loves and appreciates you exactly as you are.