Growing to our full potential

I attended my first La Leche League meeting the other day. As we were talking about baby sizes and percentiles, it was interesting to hear how each mom, regardless of how big or small her baby was, worried about them growing correctly. The mothers of smaller babies worried that they weren't doing "good enough" because their babies were small. Others with chubby babies worried that somehow their babies were now overweight because of something they had done. And, even the mom's with babies in the 50th percentile commented on how they thought, "well, that means I could be doing better.

Moms...we're so blasted hard on ourselves. No matter how things are going, it's all our fault. I really liked a comment the leader made about our babies growing to their full potential. As long as a baby is being fed on-demand (or my preference, "on-cue"), then we're doing exactly what we should be doing. From there our babies will grow to their full potential, no matter how large or how small they be. We're all different shapes and sizes and so are our babies.

I began thinking about how this applies in all aspects of life. As women, we're so quick to compare ourselves to one another, be it as moms, as wives, as scholars, with our bodies, with our minds, etc. But truth is that our job is to "grow to our full potential." As much as I want to be the mom who sews every toy, makes every meal delicious, takes care of the garden, goes running every day, stays spiritually in tune at all times, and makes every correct decision, a lot of that just isn't possible all the time. But, we work, we play, and we just try to become who we can possibly become.