Parenting Persuades You to be a More Courageous Mom Every Day

(Inside: 18 hours later and I felt like a more courageous mom. It’s crazy how motherhood can trump fear and bring out this new kind of strength in all of us.)

I did something I never thought I could do this summer – drove 18 hours alone with my three kids on our marathon road trip.

Not straight – that’s madness. Over three days, I drove 9 hours, 5.5 hours, and then 3.5 hours.

But still. Eighteen hours.

I feel like John Glenn.

Voyaging beyond an hour from home with my boys is NOT MY THING. The thought gives me insomnia. But I desperately wanted my children to see people I love, especially their great-grandma. And my husband needed to fly home to work, so I took the wheel alone and pressed on.  I would never have done this before kids, but motherhood trumped fear.

Parenting does that. It can make us narcoleptic-tired, paper-thin stretched, and worried like we majored in it, but out of the hard parts comes this crazy new kind of strength.

From day one, we are forced out of our comfort zone.  At first, we can’t even believe someone would trust us with this little human being. Then we’re astonished that in our sleep-deprived state, we’ve kept our baby fed, rested, and clean.

We get our kids safely through the toddler years despite the type of things they insist on doing, like licking spilled chocolate milk off of McDonald’s floor. (True story. That was also the day my first grey hair came in.) We become master researchers: illness, milestones, parenting tips, schools. Our strength becomes sub-human; when our children insist on koala-bearing us for ridiculous distances, we carry them.

We throw our eight-year-old across the pool simply because please mom it’ll be fun. We make hard decisions: “Should I let my teenager take my car?” or “Should I start my child in kindergarten or wait until next year?”

In juggling work, family, and household – we grow bolder; we learn to speak up. And somewhere in it all, we find our inner Mama Bear.

And she is empowering. She nudges us to do things like drive alone with kids into outer space…

…or 18 hours across America – whatever, same diff.

All I know is after the road trip, I feel like I can do more than I could before.

Not that I want to drive alone again. (I don’t. And I don’t recommend it to you either.) But I could do it if I had to.

Parenting persuades us to be braver today than we were yesterday.

And that feels good.

Parenting persuades us to be braver today than we were yesterday.And that feels good. Read on… #momlife #strongmoms #bravemoms #motherhood Click To Tweet

Read the full “Grow Your Grit” Series

When we become moms a light switch is flipped on. In juggling work, family, and household – we grow bolder; we learn to speak up. And somewhere in it all, we find our inner Mama Bear. We grow our determination, knowledge, love, patience, endurance, perspective, wisdom, problem-solving ability – we strengthen our grit. It’s not always easy, though. Growing our grit through motherhood is most definitely a process… Read on…

GROW YOUR COURAGE
Parenting Persuades You to be a More Courageous Mom Every Day
A Mom’s Quick Prayer for Perseverance that Will Lift You Up

FIND PEACE IN THE CHAOS
One Line to Get You Through the Stressed Mom Days

HEAL YOUR HURT
I‘m So Hurt: What Healing Sometimes Looks Like
When Life Knocks You Down & You’re Tired of Your Struggle
Miscarriage Grief: 5 Reasons Why a Miscarriage is so Emotionally Painful

EMBRACE CHANGE
Find Hope Now in the Story of a Mom Who Didn’t Want Change

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