“Do you have the right shapewear for this one?”

“Oh! I’ve always loved Spanx but did you hear about Skims by Kim Kardashian? I just bought my first body suit from her and I love it! You should try it.”

“Honey, if you choose this one, we’ll have to find a new pushup bra for you to wear with it. I don’t think the one you have will cut it.”

“Have you decided how you’re going to fix your hair? I guess it depends on which dress you choose.”
“I love your eyeliner like that! You should totally do it that way for Homecoming.”

For over an hour I listened to two mothers and their two daughters discuss shapewear, makeup, and dress styles as we waited in line for a changing room stall in a dress boutique. The famous line from Rober Frost kept ringing in my ear, “and I — I took the one less traveled by,” only without the final phrase of “and that has made all the difference.”  I stood there, an alien in a foreign land, one who does not speak the language nor knows the way.

The truer thought followed, I am in way over my head, reverberating as a chorus, bouncing from one ear to the next through my brain as I studied these four women with their bleached and perfectly styled hair, layers of makeup, ruffled shirts and meticulously coordinated shoes. I looked down to my blue jeans and Dankso clogs. My brain began singing to me the jingle from the Sesame Street of my youth, “One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong.”

Foolishly I thought Labor Day would be the best time to shop with my oldest and her friend, accompanied by her friend’s stepmother and little sister, for Homecoming dresses. I naively failed to consider that every other mother-daughter duo across northeast Georgia would have the same thought. The second we stepped foot in the mall I knew it would be fun as well as overwhelming and a marathon experience, one for which I never trained.

I followed where my daughter led, pausing briefly to steel myself for battle before entering the first shop. Standing in the open door way, I observed the entire space pulse almost visually with the thud, thud of pop music- the high notes punctuated with excited giggles and exclamations from the patrons inside. Dresses covered every inch of each wall and hung from racks separated by spaces barely wide enough for a petite teenage girl’s body to squeeze through. 

It took a mere eight minutes for me to complete one lap around the store, following my oldest as she scoped out the selection, then feel overwhelmed, unprepared, and entirely overstimulated. Settings such as this send my ADHD brain pinging uncontrollably as it struggles to process the overload of stimulation, but the emotional stakes of finding a great dress that made my baby happy doubled and tripled down on the sensory processing challenges.

I noticed the line for the changing area stretched a third of the way to the entrance from the back of the shop, thirty bodies deep in moms and young women waiting their turn. I suggested I stand in line while my daughter and friend shopped, allowing them to drop off selections as I kept our place. Thus I found myself behind this mother-daughter foursome as they discussed a world to which I never desired access.

Should I have studied the finer points of fashion along the way? What about shapewear? Maybe I should have kept up with the latest styles instead of only grudgingly yanking on my old pair of “tummy shaping shorts” when pressed to attend the odd black tie event. For a split second I considered opening Instagram and tricking the algorithm to start loading my For You Page with feeds from the hottest makeup influencers. I apparently needed to learn more about shading, highlights and setting sprays.

Finally, the rational resource librarian inside my brain stepped in front of the panicked neural ADHD clerks and smiled as they continued to run circles around her. She flashed one of my much needed mom mantras in front of my eyes: #NotThatMom

In the first grade, a classmate of my middle child invited her to attend her birthday party. We showed up for drop off and my mouth fell open. We stepped out of our van and into a fully actualized, meticulously recreated Pinterest board. The birthday girl had chosen a “precious jewels” theme and every room, decoration, activity, paper product, and snack tied into said theme with astonishing detail. A paid planner with full staff could not have executed this party better. My mom-inadequacy meter went from its baseline of ten to a roaring, clanging one hundred.

Comparison is an absolute bitch and that day it had me fully ensnared. A few months earlier I attempted a themed joint birthday party for my middle and oldest children. Both girls have winter birthdays so we made the obvious choice of Frozen. I found themed games, baked and decorated a cake myself, made snow related activities for the kids, and more. It exhausted me but I thought I had done a decent job…until I stood surrounded by fake emeralds, rubies, and amethysts dripping from every inch of this woman’s home. My attempt at a party compared to this successfully executed onemade clear the difference between “homemade” and “handcrafted”.

Thus began my journey into embracing the mantra #NotThatMom. 

For my first decade as a mother, I tried hard to be the mom I saw online and in magazines. I wanted to do it all and give my kids the life portrayed on television and social media. Apparently intelligence is no predictor for susceptibility because I’m a smart woman but I bought into the illusion that every other kid was getting ALL THE THINGS and I would fail if I did not do the same for mine.

When I picked up my middle from the rhinestone festooned party, she handed me a bejeweled personalized party favor bag containing similarly decorated and personalized goodies inside. I stared at it as she clambered into her booster seat and buckled her seat belt.  How in the world did this mother find the time to do all of this?!, I thought. Does she not have a job? Or any other children?!

I left the party and began some personal reflection. I needed to own the truth that I would never be THAT MOM. I did not have the time, the resources, the talent, nor the patience to pull off a feat like that. I never would be so organized nor structured enough to bring me to the point that I could achieve such a display of hosting and mothering expertise.

This happened at the same time that I found myself taxiing three kids to basketball and dance practices at different times of the evening, requiring me to find ways to shove remotely healthy food in their mouths at some point for dinner. I bought bento-style boxes with grandiose plans of filling them with carrots and apple slices alongside whole grain crackers and cute cut out slices of sandwich meat or, better yet, chicken I had grilled in advance. Some parenting influencer or another had shared this fantastic idea on their page and I believed it held the key to assuage my guilt that my kids did not eat healthy foods on nights when we zoomed from place to place.

#NotThatMom set me free of those boxes and some of the guilt. I am not and never will be THAT MOM. It’s not in my constitution, my schedule, nor my interest. Our pantry will not contain a curated display of ideal snacks in clear, labeled, and artfully stacked containers. My kids won’t eat raw vegetables with homemade hummus every evening with bread I pull fresh from the oven. I won’t be wearing high heels and the latest fashion to cheer from the sidelines nor will our home look like a five page spread in Southern Living magazine.

I am not that mom. And that’s ok. 

The truth is we parents have to do it the way we know with the understanding that we will grow, learn, and change with every year that our children do the same. I wish I had some of the knowledge and self-awareness of today back then when my kids were little, but I didn’t and can’t change that fact. Instead, I can recognize when I’m starting to compare myself to other moms and think I have to change to do the same. 

We laugh as a family occasionally that I am #NotThatMom. We’ll be talking about another parent or something one of my kids heard a friend say about their mom and we’ll laugh and say, “hashtag not that mom.” Thankfully my kids know me and love me all the same. I know I rock at certain parts of being a parent. I also know I utterly fail at others, but commit myself to learn to improve where I can. 

If my kids want to ride a rollercoaster, dance and sing in the middle of the grocery store, launch a karaoke party in the van during our school commute, or talk about their latest worst-day-ever, I am all on board. But I also know when my oldest stands in the makeup aisle of the grocery store considering products needed for the school’s latest theatrical production, I’m telling her to Facetime her aunt because I have zero expertise to lend. Thankfully her aunt represents part of the most amazing village surrounding my kids with wisdom and experience aplenty to share. 

I desperately want to be everything my kids need in this world but I cannot. I find the act of typing that sentence alone starts to dig up my insecurities. I would shield them from every pain and provide them with every answer because they deserve the world. I want to be the best.

This week my middle and I drove to pick up a friend for a sleepover and she turned to me and said, “You’re the best mom in the world.” I laughed and said, “Baby, I am not; but I’m trying my best. I’m going to mess up- and do that a lot- but I promise to always try my best.”

This wise 13-year-old I’m blessed to watch grow said to me, “Mom, that’s what makes you the best. Not that you do everything right, but that you want to do the best you can.”

Thank you, Baby. I might be #NotThatMom but I strive to be a mom that holds true to who I am; and that is the greatest success I can hope for.