Photos by Briana Lindsey Photography
I know what you're thinking... "She missed the word "don't" after "Please" in the title of this post." Nope, didn't miss a thing. I know I've said it time and time again:
Stop comparing yourself to other moms.
And I still stand by the statements I've said most of the time, but let me take a step back for a second and tell you why I've changed my mind...slightly.
Last week we were shooting for Allbirds at the most gorgeous botanical garden near where we live. In order to get up to where we wanted to shoot, there was a long dirt path that wound back and forth up to the top of the hill. I had Ava and Briana had Oliver with her so with two toddlers waddling their way up the long dirt path and wanting to go in every which direction (down the side of the hill included), it seemed a lot longer than it really was.
And you should've seen the joy on Oliver's face as he would run back and forth, exploring the world to his little heart's content. His giggles, his little legs running as fast as they could go, tripping and falling in the dirt and getting up laughing even harder, it was one of the most adorable sights I have ever experienced. And even though we were trying to snag some shots of our little cuties as he ran around doing every thing he could to get away from the camera, that joy totally superseded Briana's need to get Oliver to stand still. And I agreed 100%.
Fast forward a week to this past Saturday where we were at another shoot for Marks & Spencer at The Griffith Observatory and as soon as we got there, all Ava wanted to do was explore, just like Oliver the week before. She wanted to walk up and down the stairs, she wanted to play in the plants and she wanted to explore to her little heart's content.
And I was frustrated, to say the least.
At the end of our shoot, I was thinking back to all of the times that Briana let Oliver just explore. Her patience with him, her ability to say to herself, "We're in no rush, let's let them explore and I can capture shots where THEY want to go" is just amazing. Her laid back spirit is just perfection, in my eyes.
And you know what, I want to be just like Briana, in that sense.
I want to be able to let Ava do her thing, explore, and I want to be able to sit back and tell myself that she's a kid and there's no reason to get frustrated. We will get the shots we need whether they're what I had envisioned or not and in all honesty, it'll be much easier on both of us if I keep a laid-back mind set in my every day life.
And patience. I want patience just like Briana.
So I've said it time and time again...don't compare yourselves to other moms but I'm starting to realize that by seeing other moms in action and comparing them to how I am parenting, I can then pick the areas I want to improve as a mom. Without seeing her patience, I may not have ever realized how impatient I was with Ava in certain areas of my life.
Without seeing other moms and their best qualities, there would be no one for me to look up to for growth. We all have our strengths and we all have our weaknesses so I'm beginning to see that by comparing qualities I love in other moms, I can then begin to improve myself as a wife, as a mom and as a human being.
Let's find the great qualities we see in other moms and learn from them. Let's look up to each other for strength, for improvement and to see that there are always areas to improve. There are always ways to become a more perfect parent to our kids and we need each other to find that.
