About Learning Mothering

This is my space to write, for myself and my friends and the community around me. It is your space to read, and to get to know me and my family better. It is my space to remember, to process, to remind myself who I am and why I do what I do. My hope, my prayer, is that it is your space to laugh, to grow, and to come away remembering who you are and why you do what you do.

When I first became a parent, it didn't take me long to become frustrated with parenting research. I soon became lost in an overwhelming world of fact and opinion, of choices to be made and styles to be adhered to. There's a lot out there telling us how to parent. It's conflicting, it's frustrating; it can even be scary.

The frustration, for me, was often because I didn't (and don't!) want to follow any one particular style. Perhaps even deeper, I didn't (and don't!) want to focus on doing parenting right. There are lots of compelling arguments for just about every parenting choice out there. But in the end, parenting is a relationship. It's messy, it's complicated, and it looks vastly different from one family to another. From one child to another. Even from one season to another.

Mothering is like dancing, I think. There are steps you have to know, rhythms you have to get. But the rest you have to learn as you go along. And it's not rigid, not always the same. You have to change it, mold it, listen to the nuances of the music, the feel of the floor. You have to shift with your partner. You have to hold some things very tightly and let so many other things go.

That's what I want this place to be about. Not parenting right, but parenting well. Learning, and growing, and changing. And laughing, and savoring the moments that are.

Grace and peace be with you.

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