3 Things I Would do Differently if I Had to Start My Mothering Journey All Over Again

If you are an older mom and if you could go back to when your first child was a newborn and do it all over again, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE? If you are like me, you have a list. A very long list. 

If you had to hone it down to the THREE things you would do differently, what would those three things be? (And yes, I would love love love to hear your answers!!) 

So, how did this post idea originate? I credit Ashley Kreutzer out of Buffalo, New York, for this one. She is a young mom of many littles.
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Ashley, with six children in nine years, read my last post, You Were Created to Love, then she emailed and asked me, an older mom of eight, for some perspective. Looking back to those years when my kids were young, what would I have worried about less/emphasized more?

Wow, Ashley. That’s such a good question. And I thank you for taking the time to ask it. 

Before I dive in, I want to say that we come at motherhood with high expectations of self. We enter, knowing we will be the best possible mother of all time. 

I think that’s normal and natural and good. 

And so, when we get off of the Pregnancy Train for the very first time and walk into the Land of Our First Child, we have High Expectations.

HOWEVER:

No new mother can fully anticipate the amount of sleep deprivation, or the amount of strange bodily fluids that come out of both her and the baby, the hormonal changes, the understanding that this precious child is totally dependent on her, the overwhelming joy that is somehow threatened by the underlying fear of all of the frightening and foreign “what ifs” that crowd into her overstimulated mama mind.

Then there is the constant toll of the child’s needs. 
Plus the quiet knowledge of the husband’s needs (where does that even fit in, you wonder and ponder and are afraid to discuss). 

So, if I could go back to that stage, not as a naïve first-time mom, but equipped with the hard-earned knowledge that I now possess as a “seasoned” mom of many, what would I change? 

Interestingly, as I have pondered this, my knee jerk, quick answer is this: I wish I had been happier and appreciated my kids and their stages just a bit more. 

Now, when I think of instructing a mom to be “happier,” I envision myself in a very pretty field, filled with rainbows and butterflies and I sit down, criss-cross applesauce, in my beautiful white flowing dress and I, with my magic wand, tell the young moms that I would not have worried so much about the house. And I would have emphasized a more gentle approach with my kids, truly enjoying them from sun up to sun down. They grow so fast, after all. Those are the best years. So just enjoy them. Be happier, honey.  

And the mom is left wondering what she is doing wrong because the constant mess of her house cannot help but make her feel out of sorts and even though she wants to be kinder, her patience runs out around 7:20 a.m. because the kids have been up and at ‘em for hours and she just wants a quiet, padded room all to herself and her (now cold) coffee. 

So, asking me, a mom whose kids can now all brush and flush by themselves, what I would have worried about less/emphasized more can easily become too spacious of a question, allowing me to get too sentimental. “Oh, honey, don’t worry about the screamers and the biters, just be happier” isn’t actually very helpful for mothers in the trenches.

So what do I mean when I say “I wish I would have been happier?”

I do not mean that I would somehow become Maria from the Sound of Music, singing and charming my children into good behavior. Nope. 

What I mean when I say I would be happier, is that I would figure out what was causing me to be impatient and angry. In short, I would work on myself. 

I would do these three things differently because I KNOW they would have made the biggest difference in how I was on the DAILY when my kids were little: 

1.  My understanding of food
2.  My understanding of self care
3.  My view of God

Okay. Let’s dive a bit.

First, Food. 

Simply put, when I was in my 20’s and 30’s, I ate lots of high-sugar, high-fat, high-carb foods. One time I had a group of women over and I served them a punch made out of Kahlua, cold coffee, cream and ice cream. It seemed deliciously kind to serve them that frat party in a cup. 

I served my family chicken nuggets. Mac and cheese. Corn dogs. Chips. Lots of baked goods. 

The issue? 

I always felt tired. I was overweight (which brought about a whole lot of its own issues). I had sky-high cholesterol. And I was impatient. 

When I was in my 40’s I took a month and did something called “Whole30” where you basically remove all of the fun out of your life in the food category.

I ate meat and vegetables for a month.

At the end of the 30 days I felt phenomenal. Whole. Sane. I began to reintroduce foods back into my diet and was able to clearly see just how much sugar made me into a raging lunatic. 

Without sugar Lori was even-keeled. With sugar I became snippy and impatient (usually the next day). I could not hold my tongue. I would just say the meanest things. And feel good while saying them. So odd. 

The kids noticed. And so if I decided that today would be a good day for dessert, they would all jump on me and wrestle the fork out of my hand. I am not kidding. They did NOT want me to eat sugar once we could all see how it affected me.
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It took me a LONG time to realize how food affects me and how it affects my parenting. I know that if I could have tweaked that earlier, I would have been happier and more balanced. 

And that would have made a world of difference, Ashley. 

Here's a post I wrote on this topic: Food, Mood and Being a Mom.

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Second: Self-Care.

When I was a relatively new mom with three little kids, I would see some women wearing their little spandex work out clothes and I would think to myself, “What bad mothers.” 

I, on the other hand, was a good mom because I was at home. Taking care of the kids.

Never mind that I was overwhelmed, angry, fatigued and overweight. I knew that being a “good Catholic mom” meant sacrifice and the giving up of self. 

So I kept plowing that field. 

What changed? So many things. 

I witnessed a mom (who was living my life) start to take care of herself as a woman. She decided to eat well and exercise. On purpose. She took time for herself. She lost many, many pounds. 

The biggest, most dramatic difference was in her joy.

She was, simply put, happy. She was proud of herself. Being with her was like being with light. She shone. 

That’s when I first began to understand the power of self care. 

I had considered it something frivolous, a way that a woman put herself before her children. What I witnessed through my friend’s transformation: as she took care of herself, there was a heckuva lot more joy and energy to go around.

Whoa. Slowly, I began thinking about taking care of myself as a way that I could take BETTER care of my family. Implementing good self care was a process.

What I now know to be true: when I focus on me for a moment (or an hour or even a day), I get my emotional and spiritual tank refilled. That makes me better. Kinder. More available. Less resentful. 

Happy. 

So, looking back, I would have used good, solid self care to guide and structure my life, to give myself some balance. 

If you are a mom of littles, the idea of self care might make you want to gauge your eyes out, but the deal is: you don’t have to leave your house. You can add things every single day that will bring you to better places. 

This post was written for you: Your Child Deserves the Best Version of You. It will help you think about your life and how to add more intentional self care to it, even amid all of the babies.  


Third: View of God.

I have written about this in many places, but for those of you that are here for the first time: I used to think that my worth in this world depended on me and my behavior.

And so, if I was in a good place, doing all the good things, then I felt like I was accepted by God. That meant I was deemed as worthy. Significant.
But if I was struggling with a difficult child, or being lazy or selfish, I was obviously disappointing God and therefore, not worthy. 

I pictured God the Father as Severe Judge, more or less waiting for me to screw up so He could write my name down in some ledger.

What I know to be true: we parent in the way that we view God. This was first brought to my attention by Dr. Tim Kimmel in his fantastic book, “Grace-Based Parenting.” 

He made the point that we parent as we were parented, yes, but we also bring in the beliefs from those around us, including what we see in our church community and such. 

Dr. Kimmel composed a list of the seven most inadequate parenting methods that he has seen from Christian parents and guess what? 

ALL OF THEM ARE FEAR-BASED. As Christian parents, we’ve gotten scared. And our FEAR motivates our parenting. 

Ponder this zinger: “How we view God determines how we parent.” 

We are parenting out of fear. 

Why do we fear God? 

Why did I fear God? Well, I thought it was all about ME and my behavior and I could never measure up. 

What rocked me from that place is a bigger truth: it’s not about MY BEHAVIOR, it’s about the BEHAVIOR OF JESUS CHRIST. 

God the Father sent Jesus to win us back from the enemy. 

He went. He saw. He kicked some Satanic booty. 

The end result: we, as baptized believers, are redeemed. Bought back. New creations. We are His Children in a very real way.

As that understanding got into my bones, my fear evaporated like water on hot concrete. And I stepped into the understanding that I am loved, which changed all. I don’t have to posture. Or preen. Or pretend. 

I am loved. I am loved. I am loved. 

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And that made me much more than happy. I can now operate from a place of security and contentment, which in turn, doesn’t make me a crazed, controlling, fearful lunatic when my children color outside of the lines with their behavior. I bring them back to this happy, safe place: YOU ARE LOVED. And guess what? As that permeates within their bones, they want to color inside the lines. 

Gosh, the topic of this post was a good one and again, thank you, Ashley, for your willingness to reach out and ask for some advice. 

As I close, if I could do my mothering journey all over again, I’d work on my ability to be happier. 

Happiness comes as we operate out of a regulated, healthy place.  

The best way for me to get there: 

• Eating well.
• Taking care of myself.
• Knowing I am loved by God the Father.

Why being centered and healthy (instead of out of balance all of the time) is so important: your children really want you to be present for them. 

They want you to look at them and say, with your eyes, with your smile and with your words,

“I am glad you are alive. I want to be with you.”

THAT is what kids want and that is the best gift you can give them. 

When Mama is centered and, well, happy, the WHOLE HOUSE is happy.

You are incredibly, incredibly important. 

What three things would you do differently if you had to start your mothering journey all over again?  

P.S. I love mothers. And I created a free online retreat (where we go into topics that we touched on in this post). So if you’d like to do some further reflection in this area, please join me: THE MOTHER RETREAT.