I think we've all seen them: mommies with the latest baby buggy all of their clean and trendy children walking orderly in shopping mall. You can just imagine how they go home to their clean and well-kept houses (the likes you see in a journal of interior) and even have all their books on alphabetical order on their shelves.
The worst thing is to run into a perfect mom in a shop with plenty of mirrors. My inner self-hater jumps into action telling me that my clothes are covered in dog-hair, the Older Princess' clothes are all muddy and I haven't done anything to my hair since I braided it three days ago. My self-hater goes on to tell me that if I were any kind of mother at all, my house would always be spotless, my children would never scream, run wildly or argue with me. Without a total and utter control of everything, declares my self-hater, you're a pathetic excuse of a mother.
Luckily the best parenting guide ever written is available at all times in our house. A collection of moomin-stories. Fillyjonk is deffinetly an archetype of a mommy with a method. Clean, orderly a with three disciplined children she is the opposite of Moominmamma whose most beloved piece of wisdom is "if it makes you happy, it's good for your stomach." Their children are quite different too. Moomintroll is adventurous, happy, outgoing and brave - and hardly follows any outside rules at all. Fillyjonks children do not speak unless spoken to and seem scared of any good ald fun that might get their clothes dirty. (More about the moomin characters here.)
So when considering your own mommying method the thing to think about is rather "what it is that I want to gain" than "how does this look to others." The only "others" you need to be considering are your children (and your hubby). If I want my children to be happy and grow into self respecting adults what is the action I need to take right now? Is it cleaning? Sometimes it is. Sometimes the best action is to invent a cleaning-game and include the children in it. Sometimes it's living by the words of Dalai lama and deciding that a clean, well-kept house is indeed a sign of wasted life.
I suppose my mommying method would be to keep my eye on the ball - and the ball being happiness.
