It’s funny. I’ve been a female for 27 years and yet somehow my daughter is still finding ways to teach me. Each and every day, I am learning more about being a parent but also about myself as a person.
For those of you who don’t know, I am the mother to a three year old little lady who has a bigger attitude than you can possibly imagine, who has more sass than she has vocabulary and who brightens each and every day. She carries the biggest smile along with a huge heart and cuddles that are my entire world.
I look at my daughter and I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her, to break her little heart and make her world crumble. In my eyes, she will always deserve the very best. She deserves to know true friendship and real love. She deserves to have a family that adores her and a happy home. And I am honestly dreading the day her world comes crashing down because of friendship or a guy and I ended up thinking about what I want for her.
Why is it that I have such high expectations for how she is treated yet I have so low standards for myself? I think about how little confidence I have in myself and how badly I allow myself to be treated for many different reasons. When did I become someone I didn’t want my daughter to be? How can I teach her to love herself when I can’t? How can I encourage her to believe in herself when I’m showing her how little I believe in me? Why am I setting her future bar so low? Why do I allow myself to feel horrible and guilty about myself and who I am, when I want her to love herself more than anything on this planet?
I can’t. I can’t allow my daughter to grow up and have my standards! She deserves so much better than the life I chose for myself. I think back to how I’ve been treated by people who claimed to love me and I seriously hope that she never has to experience anything close to the shit hands I got dealt. I think about how I look in the mirror and the person who looks back, repulses me. If I could, I’d have so many things differently, but I can’t change my past. I can however aspire to be the woman that sets Luna’s bar so high that she gets the best.
I think about how she’s going to have moments that define her life, I think about how my mother handled mine and through her mistakes, I will ensure that Luna won’t become a victim to it. My daughter has beautiful curly blondish brown hair, she has my big brown eyes and a smile that gives people the impression that butter wouldn’t melt… it doesn’t but it does bloody sizzle. I want her to be strong enough that she can survive everything, not because she has no other choice but because she was brought up to take the world by it’s horns. I want her to be stubborn enough to not settle. Not in love, not in friendships and certainly not in her dreams. I want her to know that anything is possible in this life, for as long as she truly believes in it. I want her to believe in magic and fairies. I want her to experience finding her soul mate, not in a guy but in a best friend that will never leave her side. I want her to experience everything she possibly can but for her to believe in that world, I need to show her that world.
I refuse to settle anymore. I want to achieve my dream of writing a novel and I’m slowly getting there. I want to love myself as much as I want Luna to love herself. I want to want as much from myself as I want Luna to get from her. I want to be the reason she doesn’t let any person take anything from her. I want to be the role model I wish I had. And that starts with looking at my own troubles and facing them. It means raising my standards and not settling for anything less. It means walking away from the negative and doubtful and pushing for the positive and better. I don’t want to have Luna become me because I stopped putting myself above crap.
My daughter has taught me more about being a better woman than she has about parenting. Don’t get me wrong, parenting is hard and none of us get it right, but being her role model is something I am determined to get right. I started with picking one hell of a guy to be her father, one that like me, will never give up on her, that will continue to want the best for her and will support her each and every day. For someone who usually has bad taste in men, he is one that I definitely got right. I know that even on the hardest days of being a parent, they are so worth it because I am raising someone worthy of diamonds! I know what unconditional love is because even when I have to deal with my attitude coming out of a three year old, I still love her and would do absolutely everything for her. And I intend to start now. I intend to show her that healthy relationships exist. That happiness can be found everywhere if you know where to look. I intend to show her that self care is the best thing you can ever do for yourself!
To my one and only, my promise to you is to be better, to be stronger, to be happier, to be less like a doormat. I promise to find something about myself that is positive each and every day. I promise to love myself like I love you. I promise to hold myself to higher standards. I promise to never let a guy break me again. I promise that you will be my motivation everyday to be the role model you deserve. I promise to be there for myself like I intend to be there for you and I promise to take more time focusing on myself and less on those that don’t deserve it. But lastly, I promise that there will never be a day that you don’t feel like your worthy of everything because you are. I love you Luna!
Thank you to everyone who has read today’s blog post. I have recently been spending more time taking care of myself and less time focusing on what doesn’t matter and I realised that I needed to get some things off my chest, to act as my reminder that in my daughters eyes, I deserve better. Thank you for your support, remember, if you want to get in touch or keep up to date on any blog related posts, such as sneak peaks into topics or just have some things on your mind and you need someone to talk to, find me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. I hope wherever you are in the world, you’re smiling because there is nothing else like it.
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