Crushing the “Perfect Mom” Illusion

You have seen her before. She is the perfect mom. She totally has her act together, and you can’t help but wonder what is her magic secret?

Today I was that perfect mom.

Trust me. I didn’t feel like that mom, yet just hours ago another mom asked me for my secret.

We were at a moms’ group at my church. The prayer request that I shared at my table was for better sleep. Little Isaac is 9 months old. Like most babies, his sleep habits can vary, which means that my sleep varies. Better sleep is always a good prayer request for this mama.

As we were finishing up, another mom said to me, “Rebekah, I just have to say that for someone who isn’t sleeping well, you look great! You look amazing and refreshed today. What is your secret?”

That is when I told her what we all need to remember: There is no secret. It is all an illusion.

Behind any “perfect mom,” there are a myriad of flaws.

Let’s take a moment to retrace my steps from the hours before my moms’ group.

Tuesday night I knew that I would feel rushed the next morning. I tried to do as many things in advance as I could. I packed lunches, picked out clothes, packed the diaper bag, and even went to bed a little early.

I set my alarm early so that I could have plenty of time to wake up and shower before the kids were up.

Isaac had other plans. He woke up before my alarm. So instead of getting myself completely ready before the kids were up, I got the kids ready and then took my shower.

Taking my shower last doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but my curly hair needs plenty of air-drying time. Or I can dry it using a diffuser on my hairdryer. Turns out, I had time for neither.

I rushed us out the door and into the car with my shoes in my hand.

I drove to the school barefoot. We got there 3 minutes late for Grace’s bible study that meets before school.

If you were in the school parking lot, I was the crazy mom yelling out the car window for her daughter to press the call button so someone would let her in the building since the rest of the kids were already inside.

After dropping off Grace, I pulled into a random parking lot to put my shoes on. I also put on my makeup.

Finally I was ready to drive to church for moms’ group, but my hair was ridiculously wet. Usually, that wouldn’t be anything more than annoying, but I was scheduled to lead our group this morning and would be standing up front.

I kept telling myself I shouldn’t care. We are all moms and we’ve all been there, but my pride got in the way. I felt stupid showing up with wet hair. Correction: It wasn’t just wet hair. It was practically still dripping.

I complained to my girlfriends on Voxer while driving and trying to strategically align the car’s heat vents so they would blow on my hair and help it dry.

One of my girlfriends offered to bring her hair dryer to the church for me. My pride rejoiced and I accepted her offer.

Once at church, I used the hairdryer in the bathroom. No less than 3 women commented on the fact that I was carrying a hairdryer. At this point it was just comical. I was officially a hot mess.

Then about 1.5 hours later, another mom asks me what is my secret!

I delighted in crushing her illusion of me having it all together. I gladly told her of my insane barefoot-driving, makeup-applying-in-a-parking-lot, hair-dripping, hairdryer-borrowing morning.

And she smiled from ear to ear.

And I smiled from ear to ear.

Because it felt good to be real with her. And I imagine that she felt good being reminded that all of us are flawed, no matter how we appear from the outside.

Either that or she was smiling because she thought I was completely crazy.

Enjoy this post? Read one of these next:

• “Always-Put-Together Moms” Are a Lot Like My Kitchen
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• 6 Simple Sanity Savers For When I Feel Like I’m Going to Lose My Mind
• I’m Really Trying, But… (when intentional living is met with resistance)