Or must they always be patient, loving and kind? Are the two mutually exclusive? As a mom of a strong willed child myself, I have yelled at my daughter and have responded with the patience of a saint. It depends on the day and how stressed I am. And how well I’ve taken care of myself. Much as we would like to be the perfect, all-knowing moms, it just ain’t possible. Really. It’s not. Being human prevents it. As an admitted perfectionist, this seriously bugs me. I’ve read way too many parenting books (I’d love to lie and say it’s because I’m a parenting coach but I’ve been doing it since before my kids were born) and compared myself to way too many moms. The verdict is in: I feel guilty for not responding calmly every time my child pushes my buttons. What kind of mom does this make me?
After interviewing Bonnie Harris, author of When Kids Push Your Buttons And What You Can Do About It, I got clear that yelling doesn’t make me a “bad mom.” It means that I need to slow down, breathe, and think about the situation from a different perspective so I can make a new choice. This isn’t easy, especially when I feel so much anger that I want to scream. But I am human. You are human. Humans have emotions. How we handle our emotions isn’t always pretty. We yell. We apologize. We learn from our mistakes. The fact that we sometimes yell at our kids doesn’t make us “bad” moms any more than never yelling makes us “good” moms. We are a mixture of the parts of ourselves we love and the parts we don’t.
  I believe that our willingness to grow as moms counts for a lot. We may not respond to every tantrum or power struggle the way we’d ideally like to, but we can continue to aim to be perfectly imperfect. I’m not talking about letting yourself off the hook for continually yelling without looking at what’s going in within you. I am talking about knowing that you’re doing the best you can. And when you’re not doing your best, take a breath, calm yourself, and make a different choice. Launder. Rinse. Repeat. You’re in good company.