Quagmires

So here’s another truth about me: I struggle with self-esteem issues. I compare myself to the thriving, show-stopping world, and I fall short. I know; who doesn't?

Yesterday, while surfing various mom blogs, I came across a blogger who loves to craft with her son. Immediately I can feel my blood pressure rise. I rarely abide doing crafts with anyone, let alone my children. I barely tolerate walking into Michael’s or the craft section of Wal-Mart before my eyes begin to glaze over from sheer boredom. My mother used to drag us to these sections of the store, and the dread of it still remains fresh. I don’t know why it is so painfully apparent, but I hate crafts. Always have. Probably always will.

Do I let my craft repulsion keep me from crafting with my kids? No. However, unless I am given something creative to do with my girls, I do the minimum, only the stuff that could barely suffice as art or craft, like water painting, drawing with markers, coloring with crayons, or when I am in a particularly festive mood, letting my preschooler break out the scissors, but only when I am ready to sit next to her to ensure she doesn’t chop her bangs up (again) and when I’m ready to vacuum up afterwards.

So back to this blog – this mom does a craft every day with her child, and not just any craft – not the art-at-minimum junk I’m so good at; she comes up with ideas like, “How to make a sailboat out of an egg carton, an empty paper-towel roll, and some construction paper.” It doesn’t stop here. She will then read two or three sailboat-themed books to her toddler and produce a thematic boat song to sing along with it. She blows crafting out of the water.

After browsing her blog for a half an hour, in hopes of gaining a pinky’s worth of the crafting bug, I finally pull myself away, numbly dejected, foolishly comparing myself to this other blogging mother. I am a horrible mother, I think to myself. This mom taught her toddler all of the letters of the alphabet by making a letter craft with him each week, and he’s not even two! Without thinking, I mumble, “I’m such a bad mom.” Eric, who also is surfing the Net from his laptop, perks up for a second, “Huh?” Abby, who is watching Curious George (pure evidence of my neglectful mothering), immediately pipes in, “You’re not a bad mom, Mommy,” almost horrified at the accusation, and then perfunctorily adding, in quiet afterthought, “I’m here for you, even when you’re sad, Mommy.”

I know she doesn’t have a clue why I am feeling “sad” at the moment. She knows her mommy goes through times such as this, and she doesn’t always know why. But the most important lesson she thinks I need to know is the assurance of her love and presence in the midst of my reflective quagmires. My self-confident preschooler comforts me in my momentary pit of self-loathing with the message of her unfailing love for me, what truly matters in all of this. Maybe there’s hope that she’ll never battle the same issues I do.