It's time to admit it... I've made mistakes as a parent....

It's time to admit it...

I've made mistakes as a parent

Not the same ones my parents made but mistakes never the less

I came from a two parent home where my survival was my responsibility. My dad worked and my mom was In charge and I was the mistake she needed to correct. I was beaten and battered both emotionally and physically and I swore I would never treat my kids like that.

Scroll forward ... My kids are now all almost grown.... 

I didn't treat my kids like my mother treated me. I tried to correct my childhood by giving my children what I wanted as a child. 

So what's wrong with that? 

My children aren't me. They didn't grow up in a family of abuse. Where fear was your first feeling. They didn't grow up with a parent who argued in front of them... They didn't long to be safe first loved second..... I did.

My greatest mistake was not seeing my children for who they were and the situation of which they were living.

Giving them what I didn't have ... Has it's positives and negatives...

But I have learned they are not me ... Their world didn't include the pain and fears mine did as a child but their world did include disappointments due to me not seeing their experience for what it was... Their experience.

I wanted to correct the past... Instead I wish I had forgiven my past for being anything more than what it was so that I could have been free to see what was in front of me.

So I made mistakes as a parent and I ask my children to forgive me ....I am sorry. To say I did my best @ the time would be accurate but to say that I wish I had done much better is the truth. Love is where my actions started from, though sometimes they got mixed with my baggage and the fear of just not knowing what to do.

I am not perfect... Wish that I was... You deserve that! 

In closing, again I am sorry. My wish for you is to take what your childhood was like with me... Make your children's life be about them not about the correcting of your own... Get to really know the children you have ... Do what they need ... Not what you think they need based off of your own baggage.

In the end I believe love will prevail and one day all my children will understand that I'm their mom but really just a person... A woman trying to figure it all out... 

Love you my children always