Although I have heard it many times in the form of various sayings it never really hit home until I read the book "Will I Ever Be Good Enough" by Karyl McBride.
It is curious that it has to be the right situation for something to truly sink in and make a difference in your perception. I had known outwardly that, for instance, enjoying singing and being good at it are mutually exclusive. You do not have to be a good singer to enjoy it. Does that mean you shouldn't sing if you are bad? That would be ridiculous. But I am not a born singer and so this parallel doesn't effect me as much.
But when I think about motherhood. It hits deep. Being a mother is something you DO and not something you ARE. I mother. It is further proved by the fact that motherhood is often categorized by being either good at it or bad, because it is something you do, a verb. You are being a mother. You are mothering. But in the end, being bad at mothering doesn't make you a failure. It just means you failed at some aspect of mothering. Mothering doesn't define you. You can be kind and gentle and lovely but terrible at what you set as your mothering ideal. But you are still all those wonderful attributes even if something you did wasn't done well. You can enjoy mothering without being good at it. You can enjoy singing but be terrible at it and it doesn't make you a terrible person.
We wrap ourselves within these confines of labels that really don't say who we really are, merely what we do or are doing. I am many things. But I am not a mother or a wife or a singer or a writer. Those are things I do and I enjoy. So when I make a mistake or do it badly, I am still whole underneath. It cannot crack me and break me and change the very core of my goodness and strength.
