“Today in an auditorium full of parents my son scanned the room looking for me. When he saw me his face lit up in the room. He wasn’t looking for the perfect parent. He was looking for his mom. Don’t ever forget the power of simply being their mom.” Rachel Marie Martin

Today I was able to accompany my 3rd grade daughter’s class on a field trip to the State Capitol Building and the Courthouse. Mornings around here can get pretty stressful getting four kids ranging from Kindergarten to 5th grade out the door and on time to school and this morning was no exception. It didn’t help matters at all that my daughter came up the stairs wearing shoes that weren’t going to work for a walking field trip. Getting her to wear tennis shoes was quite the chore especially with the little patience that I had, and I was far from a perfect parent in navigating the shoe switch negotiations of my sweet fashionista. Less than 30 minutes after dropping my kids off at school, I returned to check in as a volunteer to accompany her class field trip. As I entered the classroom, my beautiful little girl’s face lit up with excitement at my arrival. I couldn’t help but smile in return and then I looked down at her shoes. Although she was still wearing the tennis shoes that we had argued about less than an hour earlier, she still wanted me to come with her on her adventure with her classmates. She didn’t want the perfect parent to come, she wanted me.

This made me reflect on my own mother. Today she would be picking up my youngest kindergartener who would get out of school while I was still on the 3rd grade field trip adventure. Although I confirmed numerous times the pickup time and location, my mom ended up arriving late and my littlest girl ended up waiting in the office–the last one of three classes of Kindergartener’s to be picked up. My mom had let me down and the added guilt of imagining my daughter panicking at being forgotten at school definitely weighed me down. However, my mom sent me this picture a few hours later. My little bundle of entertainment had spent the afternoon making pickles from the cucumbers in our garden. When I asked her about her day, thinking she would relay how she was the LAST ONE, she shocked me with her response. She instead recounted how she helped her grandma–even with directions and what a good helper she was adding flour to the chicken that my mom had started in a crock-pot for our dinner. Just like my 3rd grader, they were not looking for the perfect (grand)parent, they simply wanted to be with their (grand)parent. I couldn’t eat tonight’s chicken dinner without feeling complete gratitude for my imperfect mother.

So, these pickles will now serve as this reminder that there is no such thing as a perfect parent, spouse, child etc… but in spite of our imperfections we hold an important and irreplaceable part in the lives of others. When it boils down to it, there is no better motivation than to become a better parent, spouse, friend and child than to feel that joy of knowing that you are essential in their lives. They don’t need a perfect parent, they need a parent that can model that to be loved doesn’t mean to be perfect. There are few greater gifts that you could give your child, than the gift of knowing that in spite of imperfections, they are loveable and wanted and it is important to remember that as a parent you are too.