How often do you feel like a bad mom?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder about these confident posters who do not doubt themselves. Are you like this in general? Do you find most people would agree with that assessment? What were your parents like?
I'm a little jealous and want to know what it's like not to second guess

I'm the one who said about once a year. Yes, in general I'm confident in my competence in all areas. Yes, I think most would agree. My father was great until I was 7, then my parents got divorced and I didn't see him until I was in HS. He was good at providing money but little else. My mother was uninterested in parenting but interested in showing me off and making sure I never got too attached to any of my nannies, and was cold and indifferent. I haven't seen or talked to her since I was a teenager.

[Anonymous]

Never. I'm a great Dad. I know it, my kids know it, and the people around us know it. I don't always have all the answers, but I always do the best I can.

[Anonymous]

Probably about once every couple of months. Typically after being overly harsh on my kids because I'm at my wits end. Thankfully that's rare and I always apologize. I try to be kind to myself and don't beat myself up if I miss a game or travelling for work. I try my best and my kids love me and feel very safe and secure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is not a great student. He's not flunking out of high school or anything, but gets maybe one A, with the rest being Bs and Cs in a high performing school where everyone seems to be killing it (I know this can't be true but it feels this way). He doesn't seem to really like school or care very much about improving his grades. All of this makes me feel like a bad mom. Why can't I help him more? Why can't I get him to be more invested, etc. I wish it wasn't true but there it is. Bad grades=bad mom.

+1. I feel like this multiple times/week with my HS DS. I'm trying not to because I know that his grades are not actually a reflection of our parenting and we've offered plenty of help and resources. Ultimately it's up to the kid to manage this and he's not that bothered by his grades. I still feel like we're somehow failing because he will have fewer/worse college options than he otherwise would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder about these confident posters who do not doubt themselves. Are you like this in general? Do you find most people would agree with that assessment? What were your parents like?
I'm a little jealous and want to know what it's like not to second guess

Most of these people probably suck at parenting, and personing in general, because they don't spend a whole lot of effort to self-analyze, which makes it hard to self-correct.

There is a different in being self-reflective and having negative thought spirals or catastrophic thinking (making one mistake as a parent and going to I'm a bad mom place is a little catastrophic, I'm prone to this for other things but I guess not parenting!). I'm a new pp but I was a bit surprised to see all the answers here. I question myself, go back and forth on decisions for my kids, its not like I'm constantly confident in every decision I make for my kids. Definitely not. But it isn't often that I really think I am a bad mom. As I weigh all these decisions, I know deep down I'm a good mom, a great mom even. My kids are loved, nurtured, listened to. They have family dinners regularly, fun activities, friendships we nurture, a safe home. We have fun together as a family. Sometimes my husband and I will bicker like we did this morning and I'll think ugh that isn't great to do in front of the kids and resolve to do better if i can (and usually fail), but I don't go to the depths of "I'm a bad mom." I don't think I'm overly confident across the board, more just try to keep my thoughts to a helpful place when I can. I'll literally say to myself out loud sometimes "I can handle this, I've handled it before and I can handle it again' when I'm at the end of my rope. Sometimes the rope just breaks and I lose it, but it does help sometimes. What we say to ourselves really makes a big difference in how we feel.

So many of the moms posting must be great moms, it really makes me sad to think of everyone thinking they are a bad mom so often. Sending great mom vibes or something to everyone because this is definitely hard work and most are doing a pretty great job.

[Anonymous]

difference*

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder about these confident posters who do not doubt themselves. Are you like this in general? Do you find most people would agree with that assessment? What were your parents like?
I'm a little jealous and want to know what it's like not to second guess

Yes, I’m like this across the board. And it doesn’t mean I don’t reflect on things, realize I could have done things better or differently and strive to do better the next time. I do all of that. It just doesn’t translate for me into beating myself up over stuff and thinking I’m “bad.” I said in my earlier post that I’m just confident that I am generally doing the best I can in that particular situation.

I think I have a lot of innate self confidence that is nature, but my parents nurtured it as well. I’m also a first born, which sort of tracks to this also. I’m married to a first born and it is sort of funny how confident we are in our “rightness” when we initially disagree. But we are happily married and always work it out. And I think I’m pretty good at realizing when his idea is actually better than mine and can pivot to that. I also am confident enough to realize when my kid has a better idea than me, and I tell her that and we pivot to her idea. I think this is promoting confidence in her.

So, an example, let’s say I’m stressed out about work and I speak sort of harshly to my kid about something where she kind of screwed up but my reaction was stronger than it should have been. I will apologize and try not to do that again. But, I’m not beating myself up about it. I also can say that I have literally never yelled at my kid. Since I manage not to yell at people at work, I can do the same for my kid.

I’m very successful at work and I believe part of this has been a lot of self reflection on how to do better and project confidence. Women apologize too much — and we are trained people pleasers. I have a group of women that have mentored each other over the years on this stuff. Probably ten years ago, we talked about removing the “I think” and “I believe” statements in emails. Just make your recommendation with confidence. I literally just did this in an email yesterday where I read over it and was like “why am I being wishy washy, take those caveats out” and I did it. I’m also confident enough at work to give credit to the people who do the work/come up with the idea. I don’t steal people’s good work and pretend it was my own.

[Anonymous]

Multiple times a week. I second guess my parenting decisions a lot and my kids wear me down. Parenting is hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder about these confident posters who do not doubt themselves. Are you like this in general? Do you find most people would agree with that assessment? What were your parents like?
I'm a little jealous and want to know what it's like not to second guess

I'm a very self-reflective person, but at my core, I'm a "satisficer" vs. an "optimizer". These are economic terms that describe how people purchase things... do you have a minimum criteria that, when met, you make a purchase? Or do you spend a ton of time researching and finding the absolute best product before purchasing?

I feel like there is a similar dichotomy with parenting. I hold myself to a standard, but it's not the highest standard. I'm not in the business of optimization here, and beating myself up when I fail to live up to this perfect ideal.

I can do this because I actually think that my kids are better off because of this attitude. It makes me calmer, less anxious etc, and I'm not passing on to them that we should aim for perfection.

NP. My eyeballs and brain continue to reject “satisfice” as an actual word, even though I know better

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder about these confident posters who do not doubt themselves. Are you like this in general? Do you find most people would agree with that assessment? What were your parents like?
I'm a little jealous and want to know what it's like not to second guess

Yes, I’m like this across the board. And it doesn’t mean I don’t reflect on things, realize I could have done things better or differently and strive to do better the next time. I do all of that. It just doesn’t translate for me into beating myself up over stuff and thinking I’m “bad.” I said in my earlier post that I’m just confident that I am generally doing the best I can in that particular situation.

I think I have a lot of innate self confidence that is nature, but my parents nurtured it as well. I’m also a first born, which sort of tracks to this also. I’m married to a first born and it is sort of funny how confident we are in our “rightness” when we initially disagree. But we are happily married and always work it out. And I think I’m pretty good at realizing when his idea is actually better than mine and can pivot to that. I also am confident enough to realize when my kid has a better idea than me, and I tell her that and we pivot to her idea. I think this is promoting confidence in her.

So, an example, let’s say I’m stressed out about work and I speak sort of harshly to my kid about something where she kind of screwed up but my reaction was stronger than it should have been. I will apologize and try not to do that again. But, I’m not beating myself up about it. I also can say that I have literally never yelled at my kid. Since I manage not to yell at people at work, I can do the same for my kid.

I’m very successful at work and I believe part of this has been a lot of self reflection on how to do better and project confidence. Women apologize too much — and we are trained people pleasers. I have a group of women that have mentored each other over the years on this stuff. Probably ten years ago, we talked about removing the “I think” and “I believe” statements in emails. Just make your recommendation with confidence. I literally just did this in an email yesterday where I read over it and was like “why am I being wishy washy, take those caveats out” and I did it. I’m also confident enough at work to give credit to the people who do the work/come up with the idea. I don’t steal people’s good work and pretend it was my own.

Wow. I, I, I…

[Anonymous]

90% of the time.

[Anonymous]

I have such low self confidence, but my parenting is the one area where I feel good. I’m very reflective about my mistakes, try to learn from them and make actual changes. Like if I feel bad about working too much, I work less. I notice all of the good things I do. My mom really struggled with parenting so I guess by comparison I can see that I’m doing fine.

[Anonymous]

I used to feel this way when my kids were younger. So much pressure to be that perfect mom. Even good enough had to be good enough. I felt like my kids were harder than others and I wondered what I was doing wrong.

Now my kids are teens and doing okay compared to other teens (knock wood) and so I’m feeling more competent, but I know that any day now something could flip.

I think I am realizing at this point how we do have control over how our kids turn out, but not as much as we think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder about these confident posters who do not doubt themselves. Are you like this in general? Do you find most people would agree with that assessment? What were your parents like?
I'm a little jealous and want to know what it's like not to second guess

Yes, I’m like this across the board. And it doesn’t mean I don’t reflect on things, realize I could have done things better or differently and strive to do better the next time. I do all of that. It just doesn’t translate for me into beating myself up over stuff and thinking I’m “bad.” I said in my earlier post that I’m just confident that I am generally doing the best I can in that particular situation.

I think I have a lot of innate self confidence that is nature, but my parents nurtured it as well. I’m also a first born, which sort of tracks to this also. I’m married to a first born and it is sort of funny how confident we are in our “rightness” when we initially disagree. But we are happily married and always work it out. And I think I’m pretty good at realizing when his idea is actually better than mine and can pivot to that. I also am confident enough to realize when my kid has a better idea than me, and I tell her that and we pivot to her idea. I think this is promoting confidence in her.

So, an example, let’s say I’m stressed out about work and I speak sort of harshly to my kid about something where she kind of screwed up but my reaction was stronger than it should have been. I will apologize and try not to do that again. But, I’m not beating myself up about it. I also can say that I have literally never yelled at my kid. Since I manage not to yell at people at work, I can do the same for my kid.

I’m very successful at work and I believe part of this has been a lot of self reflection on how to do better and project confidence. Women apologize too much — and we are trained people pleasers. I have a group of women that have mentored each other over the years on this stuff. Probably ten years ago, we talked about removing the “I think” and “I believe” statements in emails. Just make your recommendation with confidence. I literally just did this in an email yesterday where I read over it and was like “why am I being wishy washy, take those caveats out” and I did it. I’m also confident enough at work to give credit to the people who do the work/come up with the idea. I don’t steal people’s good work and pretend it was my own.

Wow. I, I, I…

Lol. That PP is full of it—she sounds like she has low self esteem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think back to all those episodes of Maury Povich I used to watch in college with unruly kids who cursed at the audience members or people who fed their 6 month olds raw hot dogs and soda. Then I look at myself, shrug, and think I'm probably doing just fine. There are pinterest moms, Maury moms, and then a really wide distribution of us in the middle. And that's fine with me.

I love this