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I’m a mean mom and that’s perfectly fine with me.  I’m not here to be my child’s best friend.  It’s not my job to make their life easy or perfect or pain free.  It’s my job to prepare them for life and then when the time comes, to let them go so they can live their life.  I hope and pray that when the time comes for them to spread their wings and fly, they will be prepared for it.  Part of that preparation for life means I have to be the mean mom sometimes.

This morning my daughter had a level 10 meltdown.  I’m talking screaming, crying, nearly hyperventilating, went to school red faced and blotchy type of meltdown.  Long story short, she messed up.  She had a fundraiser at school and I told her from the day she brought it home that it was her responsibility to raise money, to take it to her basketball games, ask her grandparents to contribute, to walk around the neighborhood and ask for donations.  What did she do?  For two weeks she left it stuffed in her backpack and did nothing.  She didn’t plan.  She didn’t take initiative.  She didn’t do anything.  Then on the morning that it was due, she wanted to make the problem my fault.  She wanted to point the finger at me.  She wanted to blame it on her little brother, which she did REPEATEDLY in a high pitched screaming voice.  She wanted to make it his problem and his fault and my responsibility and his responsibility instead of her own, all why maintaining her innocence and perfection in the situation.  But most of all, SHE WANTED ME TO FIX IT.  She wanted me to bail her out.

Well.  I didn’t bail her out.

I know, I know right.  MEAN, MEAN, BAD MOM.  I loaded my daughter up all red faced and blotchy and told her I’m sorry but I would not give her any more money.  I told her I was disappointed in her choices and her irresponsibility and that sometimes being a mom meant I had to let her learn from her bad choices.  She hated it.  She hated every minute of it.  She screamed that I didn’t care about her, that I didn’t love her.  It was hard.  But you know what else it was?  Absolutely necessary.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I do have a heart.  I hate seeing my daughter so upset.  I hate having to dig in and I hate those moments when my heart, my spirit tells me, “Carissa, this is one of those tough love moments.  You have to take the hard road not the easy one.”  Because trust me, it’s a lot easier in the moment to bail her out and give her that temporary fix rather then digging in and telling her I will not give in then having to deal with the 30 minutes of hell that followed.  Yep. Tough love sucks.  It sucks to be on either end of it.  It sucks to be on the receiving end of tough love and it sucks to be the person who has to dish out the tough love.  But either way you slice it, tough love is still LOVE and I would argue it’s an extremely necessary form of love that more people should practice using these days, especially in parenting.  I remember a day when I was pouting and feeling sorry for myself and quite honestly was in a huge rut.  My sister had come to visit and I’m guessing she was probably sick of hearing my sob story.  THANK GOD.  Because I was being a miserable human being and I needed someone to love me enough to tell me to snap out of it.   I will never forget her looking at me and dishing out that tough love, “Carissa.  You need to get over yourself.  You are the one who chose to have these kids and they are your responsibility not anyone else’s.”  OUCH.  Yeah it hurt.  But you know what hurt the most?  The fact that the second she spoke the words I knew they were the absolute truth.   Yep. I needed to get over myself.  I needed to make changes.  I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself.  I needed to stop playing the victim.  So you know what?  I owned what she said to me because I knew she was right.  I decided to make some changes.  I got a sitter.  I started a photography career.  I started to feel better about myself as a mother, as a wife, and as a person in general.  The babysitter I hired became a close friend over time and my kids were in her wedding a few years later.  Funny how things like that tend to work out when you decide to stop playing the victim and you decide to take action and make positive changes instead.  I stopped blaming my problems on everyone else and I stopped expecting other people to fix them for me and as a result, I was a much happier and healthier person.  I look back on that moment and I realize that my sister loved me so much that she was willing to say the hard things.  I am forever grateful for that because ultimately, her tough love changed my life.

So back to my daughter.  No, I don’t enjoy those tough love moments with her.  In fact, when they happen I get a little sick to my stomach.  I get anxious.  I get upset.  But I love her too much not to let her learn from her mistakes.  I love her too much to let her grow up thinking her mistakes are my responsibility or someone else’s.  I love her too much to let her get away with always blaming other people for her problems and thinking she is perfect which quite honestly, she seems to struggle with quite frequently these days.

I laugh when I think about my grown children talking about me as a mother one day.  They will no doubt have their issues with the way I did some things.  They might even say I was mean.   I’m sure they will tell stories about things I use to say over and over and over that would drive them crazy and I would venture to guess that this will be one of those statements they will remember me drilling into them repeatedly, “The only true mistake is the one you don’t learn from and keep repeating.”  I say that one ALL. THE. TIME.  I say it because I don’t want them to think they have to be perfect.  I want them to know they will make mistakes and that’s ok.  I want them to know I made mistakes.  I made big ones.  I want them to know that I learned from them and grew and my mistakes have made me who I am today.  So no, I don’t expect them to be perfect. I expect them to make mistakes.  But I also hope they will choose to learn from their mistakes and not keep repeating them.  Because ultimately they will be adults one day and I won’t be able to save them from their mistakes.  Right now they are just children.  They don’t understand all the complexities of life.  It is my responsibility, not theirs, to teach them about life and because I know that, I will choose not to rob them of the right to learn from their mistakes when they are young, even though that is hard.  Even though my daughter might feel like I’m mean.  Even though she might scream at me that I don’t love her and that tears my heart into a million pieces.  I choose tough love because I love her oh so very, very much.

So with that being said, next year my daughter will have another Jump Rope for Heart envelope come home.  And next year I hope she will remember the tough love I had to dish out.  I hope she will remember that I made her use her own money and she only had $5 to take to school because she didn’t take the time to go raise the money.  I hope she will remember that if she wants a different outcome, she needs to learn from her mistakes this year and make necessary changes for next year.  Because one day she will be in high school, then in college, then out in the real world.  One day she won’t be a little girl who can cry to her mom and dad and they can come running and fix everything.  She will be a high school student who has to realize that a mistake could mean a grade on a transcript that will forever ruin her chances at that scholarship she wants.  I can’t fix that for her.  She will be a teenage girl who has to make choices about who she dates and what kind of friends she chooses to associate with and if she makes bad choices, I can’t fix that for her.  She will be a college student who has to decide whether to go to that party or study for her test.  If she makes the wrong choice, I can’t fix that for her.  She will be in a career where she will have to take constructive criticism from a boss and if she can’t handle that and make the necessary adjustments and therefore gets fired, I can’t fix that for her.    She will be a grown woman making choices about who she marries, about her career, about the person she wants to be in life.  Those choices will be completely out of my hands.  They are completely up to her at that point.  I will have already pushed her lovingly from the nest and told her to spread her wings and fly.  Sure that scares the crap out of me sometimes but I know that day is coming.  So when she spreads her wings to fly, I want to make sure that they are strong and they are ready so that she can soar.  What does that mean?  That means I have to be the mean mom sometimes.  I have to love her enough to dish out tough love.  I have to let her feel the weight of her choices.  I have to LET her have the consequences when she makes bad choices even though she doesn’t want them and honestly I don’t want them for her.  I realize that she won’t always be that precious little doll faced girl who loves to make videostars with her friends and dance around the house everywhere she goes.  So even though it’s hard to upset that little girl, to hurt her, to let her feel the weight of consequences, I refuse to rob her of the right she has to learn from her mistakes.

I have many roles as a mother.  I am the fun mom.  I am the throw a kick @$$ party mom.  I am the mom who has dance parties.  I am the mom who reads that book series with you then takes you to the movie and buys you the big tub of popcorn with extra butter and takes you to QT for Reese’s peanut butter cups before the movie.  I am that mom who spends all day baking your favorite Christmas cookies and candies with you.  I am that mom who pushes you when you want to quit.  I am that mom who tells you the truth, not what you want to hear.  I am that mom who tells you she believes in you and the sky is the limit.  You know what else I am?

I am the mean mom.  And I am perfectly at peace with that.

Oh and by the way this is the picture I took of my daughter on the way to school when she dug in the bottom of her backpack and found the “long lost, STOLEN by me and her brothers” fundraising sheet.  SURPRISE.  Funny how that works.  Learn from those mistakes baby girl.  Learn from those mistakes.