By JMathis

Being a mom is inherently a lifetime of worry, guilt and walking on eggshells.

You have the world telling you that if your kid is not in gymnastics, ballet, soccer and swimming lessons (all at once), she’s doomed to be a couch potato…for life.

That if she eats a cookie everyday, she’s headed towards adult obesity.

That if she watches more than exactly 1.3 hours of television each day, she will end up being a violent member of society.

That if you don’t read to her at night, she’ll never do well on her SATs.

That if she isn’t being stimulated enough in daycare, you ruin her chances of getting into a good college.

As a mom, you hear fragments of these conversations in your head on a minute-by-minute basis, as you drive your kids to school, juggle a career, make them dinner, put them to bed.

So, you start developing your own rules. Rules that you think will churn out the perfect kid.

My rule was simple for my daughter: I’m not raising a princess.

This way, she’s guaranteed to go to Harvard on a golf scholarship, and become the scientist who cures Alzheimer’s.

As AbbyA would probably say, I was so determined to think “out of the box”, that by defining and limiting God, I just ended up being trapped in an even smaller box of my own making.

Fortunately for me, God had other plans.

He gave my daughter a daddy who daily gives her permission to be a soft princess who loves pink and the sweeter things in life. Who teaches her that you don’t have to scrape and claw your way in this world, and that you deserve to be treated by a man with utmost gentleness and kindness.

God gave her that balance so that her neurotic mother wouldn’t dictate to her the perils of being a girlie girl in the 21st century. So that I wouldn’t be allowed to dump a lifetime of my hangups, insecurities and psychobabble on her.

Fortunately for me, God had other plans.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. Isaiah 55:8