Some friends of ours recently told us she was pregnant. As she and I talked about what she was registering for she mentioned just how many things she feels like she should put down, but doesn't know if they are necessary or not. We both laughed about how when our parents were growing up parents would just put all the kids in the backseat sans seatbelts and let them have at it. Sort of like this: (from the blog below)

But one of my favorite bad mom stories is when our babysitter in the 70's was driving me and my 4 year old brother somewhere in her van and my brother was standing on the front seat. We didn't use seat belts back then. She did a u-turn and when we got to the other side of the street he was gone. Fortunately, he had fallen onto the grassy area of a sidewalk.

I will definitely strap my kids in, but past that, I kind of have the more laid back mentality about parenting -- if so many other people survived without having chairs strapped to the table then my kids probably will too (now we will see if I still talk like this once I actually do have children :).

This blog asked for people to share their worst parenting stories and there are some real doozies. I highly recommend reading them for a good laugh.

However, after all the bad stories that people wrote in, someone shared this and I think it is a great point. I see so many friends beat themselves up about their parenting and I think this quote should be framed in every house:

"The question isn't whether we're going to mess up our kids, but HOW we're going to mess up our kids. Our parents messed us up, their parents messed them up. Someday, our kids will talk about all the things we did wrong: did we pay too little attention to them, or smother them? Were we overprotective, or did we let them harm themselves? Were we too angry, or did we keep all our emotions inside and screw them up that way? Whatever we did, they'll deal with it. Just like we've dealt with how our parents raised us."

I am always a bit befuddled to think of how or why some memories stick and others don't. Sometimes when I babysit I bend over backwards to think of a really fun activity and then the realistic side of me says, "They will never remember this auditory/kinesthetic play time I arranged but they will probably remember when the cat jumped in the Christmas tree, it fell over, broke half the ornaments and I said a curse word."

Here is a great forward I saw on my friend Ali's blog:

I’m Invisible
It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I’m on the phone andask to be taken to the store.
Inside I’m thinking, “Can’t you see I’m on the phone?” Obviously not; no one can see if I’m on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor,or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see meat all. I’m invisible. The invisible Mom.

Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this?Can you tie this? Can you open this?
Some days I’m not a pair of hands; I’m not even a human being. I’m aclock to ask, “What time is it?”
I’m a satellite guide to answer, “What number is the Disney Channel?”I’m a car to order, “Right around 5:30, please.”

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude -but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seenagain. She’s going, she’s going, and she’s gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the returnof a friend from England . Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a hair clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said,“I brought you this.” It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe . I wasn’t exactly sure why she’d given it to me, until I read her inscription: “To Charlotte , with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.”

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths after which I could pattern my work. No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tinybird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, “Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.” And the workman replied, “Because God sees.”
I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, “I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you’ve done, no sequin you’ve sewn on, no cupcake you’ve baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can’t see right now what it will become.”

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.

The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don’t want my son to tell the friend he’s bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, “My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.” That would mean I’d built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, “You’re gonna love it there.”

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we’re doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.