Cute picture, huh?
This was my attempt to teach my kids about Greek Easter, which is typically a week or so after American Easter. We dye our eggs red, signifying the blood of Christ. I was too lazy to bundle up my kids {it was still snowing in Michigan by April} to go out and buy a bunch of eggs and red dye, so this served as my lazy effort to show them their Greek culture without going to the store and making a mess with all that dye.
As you see in the picture, the kids looked happy painting their eggs made of paper plates. They humored their mother by listening to her teach them about both the representation of the red paint and how we celebrate Easter differently than their friends.
Yes, I was a Pinterest-worthy mother. I most certainly deserved my Mother-of-the-Year Award—if you look at this picture only, that is.
But after about fifteen measly minutes of painting, my kids started getting fidgety as most five and three-year-olds tend to do. My son decided to finger paint, instead. He put his brush down and submerged his fingers into the red paint. Giggles bounced off the kitchen walls. His little sister eagerly mimicked her big brother by dunking her hands, too. Red paint didn’t manage to stay on their paper plate eggs for long. And when my son tired of that, he started running around the house chasing his little sister shouting, “I’m going to get Jesus’ blood all over you!”
Ok, it was probably not the most appropriate behavior.
“Noooo!” my daughter squealed! “Not on my favorite pajamas!”
But despite my yelling, he did in fact get paint on my daughter’s cherished pajamas. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Nooooo!” she cried. With her red-painted hands cradling her face, she stood horrified.
Red paint was everywhere. On the kitchen table. In their hair. On their faces. On Mom. On the bathroom counter.
But I have no pictures to serve as proof of all that chaos, do I? Nope. I didn’t snap and post those moments, did I?
For every adorable picture you see on the Internet, know that there is one horrified mother behind it—likely minutes before or after the one shown was snapped. There is no such thing as a Pinterest-Perfect Mother. No mother knows what she’s doing. Kids like to do that to us, don’t they? They make us question ourselves daily and search for that parenting GPS to help guide us through motherhood. Yes, continue to take those pictures of your beautiful smiling children—they are adorable, after all. And they’ll serve as great memories when your children are older, too. But please don’t compare yourself to other mothers who seem to have it all together—they don’t.
And you never know what truth that mother may be hiding behind that perfect picture. She may be in some intense pain and those pictures serve as her shield. Let her have that shield. We all need one to some degree. But just don’t compare yourself to these pictures. They are not real life. No one takes pictures of that—or of red paint splattered pajamas instead of a perfect craft. Nope, no mom has it all together. If it looks like she does, it’s a lie.
