He thought about that for a moment and responded, “But you guys never make mistakes.I wish I was a grown up. Then I would never make a mistake.” I did laugh at that one. “Uh. Yeah. I could see how you might think that, but I make mistakes everyday, and I’ve made mistakes everyday of my life. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s part of life.” His red eyes seemed doubtful, but his mind was on something else already and the conversation changed. Phew! I thought. Crisis averted.Until a few days later. He came home from school crumpled and dejected. Again he said he hated school, learning was too hard, he made too many mistakes and he didn’t want to go back. Suddenly, this was now a thing. An event to be dealt with. My mind started reeling. What happened? How did this happen? Did I do this to him? Is this because he’s the oldest? Is this because we are too hard on him? Do I push him too hard? Is this my fault? Did I do something wrong???
That’s when it hit me. I was doing the same thing. I was falling into the same trap as my son. The trap of thinking that I have control over anything. The trap of thinking I could be a perfect mother. The trap of believing that I can keep my children safe from pain. Oops! Crud! How many times do I have to learn this lesson?
Apparently I am going to have to learn this one again and again. So I did what has worked in the past. I tried to slow down and pay attention to my self. I realized how afraid I am of making mistakes. I recognized the familiar voice telling me: I might look stupid. I might look silly. I might look incompetent. People might not like me. Darn. Right back here again.
I decided to face my fear and make a list of my daily mistakes to bring to his attention. Every time I messed up, I told him. We’d talk about it and routinely, he forgave me much faster that I ever forgave myself. I realized how much more likely I was to voice the faults I found, than talk about what was right in the world. Together we changed our goodbyes. Instead of saying “Have a Good Day!” we said, “Try your best and make lots of mistakes!” Finally, one morning we decided to look up “famous mistakes.” What we found was awesome. We found out that the slinky…was a mistake. Post-it Notes…mistake. Silly Putty….mistake. But the best, happiest mistake of all….Chocolate Chip Cookies!
Now, upon further research I’m not sure if the Toll House story is true or not. But it was true for him. This story helped him to hold in his mind that he can make mistakes and that maybe even something brilliant and yummy will come out of it. We’ve continued to work on this. Him in his way, and me in mine. I try to remind myself that there is no such thing as perfection, that life is good, right here, just as we are, and that by sharing our successes as well as our failures, we can help each other grow.
