A response from a 'perfectly imperfect mum' to the lovely mum wanting to be one

I just wanted to write a little response to the mum who recently posted asking how to be the 'perfect imperfect mum'.

I am 29. I am happily married with 3 kids. I also work in a well paying professional job. I have a nice home with nice things both necessary and unnecessary. I volunteer for my kids social activity committees, I bake cupcakes for school morning teas and i have a roster for my washing so I don't mix my white and darks. I am told at least once a week that I am 'super mum' or 'super woman' by the other mums when I pull up at school in my soccer mum SUV. I am very thankful for these things. On paper my life looks perfect.

What you don't see behind my Facebook pics of my nice house or my family snaps of the weekend beach trip, is that I cry at least 3-4 times a week. I suffer from depression on and off also and I have had to go onto medication to calm my anxiety to help me sleep. I went through a very bad stage where i was diagnosed as being severely suicidal. I bake cupcakes at 10pm for the kids to take to school as it helps soften my guilt that I can't be helping at the school function as I have another work meeting which has to come first, the same guilt that pushes me to volunteer for committees that I really don't have any time to do but I exhaust myself todo It. The photos of the kids playing happily that I posted on the weekend, I wasn't there for half of them - my husband texted them to me while I was an hour away caring for my sick mum who refuses to go into care and cleaning up her toilet 'accidents' Sometimes my kids overwhelm me so much that I've had to call my husband home from work so I could just sit in the shower and cry my eyes out for hours - that I feel like I should cope better. I bite my nails so bad they bleed, And my nice SUV, there is a smell inside it that I just cannot locate! I think it's rotten fruit or spilt milk... I am not wanting sympathy, really my life is very good, but I'm showing my imperfections.

I don't have my shit together at all!!! I probably never will. But I'm still superwoman, because I am doing the best that I can and any woman who is doing that is super in my eyes! It's so easy to compare someone else's highs with your lows, but comparison is such a bastard that will never leave you feeling good. I promise and assure you, from a 'perfectly imperfect mum' that you are just as 'perfectly imperfect' mum as all of us, don't ever measure your self worth on a perceived view of others. You are super woman you just haven't noticed the cape on your back yet xx