Strong Moms

I am someone that really hates to be told what to do. I mean, I used to really hate it and now I hate it with a passion. “Let me ‘splain…..no, there is too much, let me sum up.”

I don’t mind be asked to do things.

I don’t mind working with someone else and having them give me directions.

I don’t mind when my boss tells me what he wants done.

I’m not an anti-social psychopath who kills people who tell me what to do. What I mean is that I really dislike when someone else assumes. A) They know more about my life than I do and therefore can make better decisions about my life than I can and therefore believe they should. B) that they have thought about my decisions and clearly think that I haven’t thought about them and they should rectify the lack of forethought for me.

There is little extra room in my head for all the details of my life and the plans and processes that I need and I don’t need someone else giving their commentary about my choices. So I have avoided asking people for their opinions for years because I wasn’t necessarily going to actually pay attention to them and felt somewhat obligated to do so if I asked for them. Sometimes I was just overwhelmed and didn’t want any more to process. Sometimes I would ask someone’s opinion on a relatively safe matter and then calibrate for their ability to share their thoughts without setting up an expectation that their ideas would be followed. If they shared willingly and without expectation and were fine if I decided not to take their advice in a super literal way and could let it go after the initial query, I would consider asking their advice on more serious matters. Anyone who is utterly convinced that there is only one right way and they or their mama are doing it just that way is not someone I want to take advice from.

So why do I bring these random things up in a post about mentoring motherhood? Because if you ask, you will receive. I didn’t consciously choose mentors for my parenting journey, I just watched people that I thought were excellent mothers and tried doing the things that they did that made sense to me. Sometimes those things worked and sometimes they really didn’t. I realized that sometimes these other ladies had different kids than mine and different things work better for them than for me. I realized that they had different personal values that differed from mine. Like for instance, I have a very high value on “people always come before things.” That looks like me taking the time to listen to another person in need even when I really need to get something done or I’m running behind or am overcommitted. To another person, that might look like a terrible lack of boundaries or even a very poor example of what manners should look like. If someone has a high value on cleanliness they might really feel good when they focus on their house and their car they drive and their personal cleanliness.