Caregivers Can Celebrate Mother's Day With Forgiveness

Photo credit Pexels Secret Garden Nearly any of us who are mothers have wanted to be a perfect example of motherhood. Yet, the reality is, since we are human, most of us perceive some failures in our own mothering. We do the best that we can and often overcome tough issues of our own. Yet we are rarely saints who are often portrayed in literature and advertisements, especially during this special time when we celebrate mothers. We need to understand, love, and forgive ourselves for our perceived imperfections as mothers. And yes, we need to try to understand, love, and forgive our mothers for what may have been less than perfect mothering practices. Perfection is hard to define and resides in the eye of the beholder, so it's a subjective idea, anyway. Most readers will feel that their mothers have or had some flaws but did a pretty good job. Some readers, unfortunately, were raised by abusive mothers – often women who were themselves abused and were too emotionally damaged to break the cycle.  Most of our mothers did their best: I'd like to pay tribute to my own mother. She was a wonderful, loving person. Was she perfect? No. She was human, so she had her faults. But I look back on our relationship with love, appreciation, and compassion. I do know that I was fortunate to have her as my mother. How about your mother? Can you look back on your childhood and say "she did her best?" For readers who suffered emotional and/or physical abuse from mothers w...
Source: Minding Our Elders - Category: Geriatrics Authors: Source Type: blogs