It’s been a tough year, mama. You think you’re failing your kids.

You’ve lost your cool. You can’t count the times you’ve told them to go back on their screens while you attend another Zoom work meeting.  On occasion you’ve swapped their online maths lesson for a Disney movie. You’ve ordered pizza when you just didn’t have the energy to make dinner from scratch. You’ve told them ‘yes’ when you should have told them ‘no’. And you’ve had to tell them ‘no’ when you’ve desperately wanted to say ‘yes’.

And the world is trying to tell you that your kids are going to be part of a ‘lost generation’.

A glance at the daily news will have you convinced our kids are doomed. That they’ll never catch up on their schooling. That their social skills will be non-existent. That they’re facing a potential huge loss of future earnings.

But here’s what I know: your kids are going to be fine.

Better than fine! Because you’re doing an amazing job. 

There’s no manual for this. There’s no ‘right’ way to parent through a pandemic. Your own parents could never have prepared you for this. We’re all just winging it right now.

And I reckon that we’re all getting it right, way more often than we’re getting it wrong.

Look at it this way:

You’ve given them a million amazing experiences. 

At any other time, your kids might look back on their year and remember the big things: the foreign holidays, the big parties, school trips. But this year? You might just be surprised by the things that have brought them joy.

It might be that time you finished home learning early on a gloriously sunny day and played in the park instead. It might be the time you attempted to bake chocolate muffins and you ended up with under-baked dough, a bombsite of a kitchen, and happy smiles all round. It might be the evening you stayed up late to toast marshmallows in the fire pit. 

Whatever it is, you’re all discovering that sometimes the little things are really the big things.

You’ve learned a lot more about them.

Sure, you’ve had your moments and many of you will be dreaming of the day you can send your little cherubs over to Grandma’s house for a day (or a full week!). But this year, you’ve really gotten to know your kid.

Instead of having to intuit from a series of grunts whether they’ve had a good day at school, you’ve been right there with them. You know what they’re learning, you know more about how they learn, and you’re more aware of the stuff they’re into.

You’ve had more conversations about the things that interest them and you’ve fostered their interests by buying books, watching documentaries together, or getting involved in the things that matter to them.

You’ve taught them life skills.

No matter how old our kids are, we’ve all been surprised by just how much learning happens in the home. 

When you’re not so much governed by the school timetable, you might have had the time to teach your kids how to bake, how to plan nutritious meals, how to take care of the garden, or grow herbs.

Or you might have been buried under so much work this year that your kids have had to learn how to help with the laundry or make their own scrambled eggs at lunchtime.

Either way, you’re helping them learn valuable life skills that will serve them well whatever their future holds.

You’ve taught them how to be a force for good in the world.

Your heart breaks at everything your kids have missed out on this year: fun with friends, birthday parties that didn’t happen, holidays that were cancelled, normal everyday life that has been suspended and changed beyond recognition.

But here’s what they have experienced: 

They’ve made huge sacrifices to protect not just the people they love —their grandparents or a clinically vulnerable parent — but to protect their entire community. To protect people they’ve never even met. 

They’ve watched you do the same. They’ve watched you running errands for shielding relatives. They’ve seen you adapt to some pretty scary external circumstances. They’ve seen you find ways to work, to parent, to teach, to play even when fitting it all in feels impossible.

They’ve taken it all in and yes, it’s going to shape their future. It’s going to make them resilient, adaptable, strong, and compassionate human beings. It’s going to shape the kind of generation the world desperately needs.

So, yes, you really are doing great.

Ignore what you see on social media — the mums who’ve created mini classrooms in their spare room, the ones who’re teaching their little ones Mandarin while they all bake sourdough together. Behind the scenes, we’re all struggling. We’ve all failed more times than we’d like to admit.

But we’re also succeeding in a million different ways. Our children are fed, they’re warm, and above all, they know they’re loved. This year, that’s enough. It’s more than enough.

So this Mother’s Day, forget that time you yelled so loudly you couldn’t look your neighbour in the eye for a week, and focus on the many different ways you’ve shown up for your child this year. And think of the millions of ways you’re going to keep showing up for them throughout the rest of the pandemic — and beyond.

Your children might not think to thank you yet, for everything you’ve done for them over the past year. But someday they’ll look back on this period of their lives and they’ll recognise everything you’ve done for them. And they’ll be eternally grateful that, out of all the mums in the world, they got you.

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