It Doesn’t Matter

When I was a young mother I wanted to be a perfect parent, or at least appear to be perfect with perfect kids. I was often exacting and demanding thinking that their lives reflected on me as a parent.  I dressed my kids well and on Sundays at church they had to have on clean, cute shoes with matching socks and of course hair accessories that matched their clothing.  When something didn’t go exactly how I wanted it to my mother-in-law would say “it doesn’t matter” and I would think “IT DOES TOO MATTER!”  As time went on I battled my kids over these and other unimportant, silly things and caused a lot of disharmony and strife in our home, and I eventually learned that my mother-in-law was right, it didn’t matter.  As teens some of my kids would wear mismatched socks and I learned to think “at least they have socks on” and then my youngest got a little older and she won’t wear socks at all.  I learned again to think “well, at least she has shoes on.”  Most of the things I stressed about with my children were unimportant and trivial while I often missed the big picture, that they were caring, good people who loved each other and wanted to make the world a better place.  As an older parent I realize there is no such thing as a perfect parent and if there was, certainly the standard wouldn’t be measured by shoes and socks.