I Just Gotta Be Me!

One of my favorite movies growing up was, “Gone With the Wind.” I once watched it in the early hours of the morning on my 16th birthday, waiting for it to be time to go and take my driver's test. I remember even back then thinking that I so wanted to be like Melanie’s character in the movie. Sweet, gentle, and always seeing the best in people. But instead my personality tended more towards Scarlett’s, who was really nice - until things didn’t go her way. Manipulative, spiteful, you get the idea. Now as a big grown up girl, I have high aspirations that revolve more around my roles as a mother. 

Recently I was listening to an interview with Karyn Purvis, whose ‘Connected Parenting’ tools have helped so many families in the adoption world. She is someone I greatly admire, and was grateful to have had the chance to see once in person before her early passing. As I listened to her speak, I noticed something that I am sure most people do when they hear her; Karyn’s gentle voice. So kind and loving. Surely this in itself inspired trust in the many children she worked with throughout the years. I want that gentleness. I aspire to embody that gentleness. And I do a great job at that for a while, until all of that stuff I keep pushing down to maintain that gentleness comes bursting through like a rocket and it’s all over. 

Karyn’s gentleness was a part of her very being. In other words, I am never going to be a Karyn Purvis, or a Melanie Wilkes. I try to incorporate all that she left us with, as well as her gentle disposition, but her strengths will very likely never be mine, or at least not in such a way that they become a part of my true nature. However, the Lord did instill in me some of my own pretty great mama strengths. And while I am trying to enhance those areas in which I am less naturally inclined, I can also try to magnify those areas where I know that I excel in order to balance out the parenting scale a bit. 

Having this more positive focus as a parent also means that I don’t become overly fixated on what I feel are my weaknesses. My dear husband tends to do this at times, and will get into a gloom because he feels that he falls short in some ways as a father. During those occasions I try to remind him, “But look at these things that you do with and for our kids that are so great! How many dads out there do that?!” Neither hubby nor I should continually beat ourselves up for lacking some amazing parental strength that we perceive someone else to have! I am not the best mom on the earth. We are not the best parents out there to be raising these children that the Lord gifted to us. But He chose me for this! He chose us for this! And He has given us every good thing we need to be the parents that those children need us to be. So, while I still want Melanie Wilkes’ inherent goodness, and Karyn Purvis’ gentleness and overall wonderfulness, and will strive to incorporate these virtues into my parenting, for the most part I will put my efforts into being the best version of ‘me’ as a parent that I can be.