All I ever wanted to be was a mama. A mama like my own who taught me to love with my whole heart. Like my friends’ moms whose homes I wished I lived in, with art projects and homemade pesto and string cheese and secret staircases. Like the moms that hired me to be their nanny and do all the fun stuff with their kids, where I learned about sidewalk chalk and walks to the park and time spent playing and reading and blowing bubbles. With nothing else to worry about besides their kids. Not survival. And not stability. Just the get down on the floor and play and make Mac n cheese and finger paint and sing songs. So many songs.

Then they got older. Without an instruction manual. Without a history to rely on. Without the life experience of having been parented well.

Yeah, I said it.

And yet, somehow, these kids of mine are doing ok after being mommed by what sometimes feels like an imposter. Fake it til you make it. Pretend you are the mom you wanted to be. Balanced with brokenness and too many kisses.

And forgiveness for not being perfect.

Some people won’t hug their mom today, by choice. And for solid, if not good, reasons. Don’t judge them until you have lived the same life. Felt the same pain. Triggered. Let them keep on keeping on however they can.

And hope that their momming was good enough so that their kids don’t have to recover from their childhood.

Happy Mother’s Day to those that became their own.