As any mum will know, accidents and mistakes are par for the course. And this mum wants to remind us that imperfect parenting is okay - and normal.
In a recent Facebook post, mum-of-three Jennifer Campbell shared a list of the risky mistakes she's made with her kids, ranging from her son being found out on the road to her youngest kid trying to cut himself a piece of cheese...with a massive knife!
Jennifer, who runs Mama Lion Strong, shared the list in an effort to remind the net that "accidents happen, and when they do, people need love and compassion, not lectures and blame."
"Be kind, gentle, and compassionate in your thoughts and conversations about this," she wrote. "We are all just perfectly imperfect humans, trying out best out here."
So far, Jennifer's post has been shared more than 10,000 times, and filled with comments thanking Jennifer for being so honest about times things haven't gone well.
And we can see why.
In the post, Jennifer talks about a time when, busy with a nursing baby, she failed to notice that her two-year-old had wandered out onto the road.
A woman found him and brought him back to Jennifer, but not before giving her a big lecture.
Jennifer wrote: "'Do you know where I just found your child?,' she screeched. I was shocked, and of course couldn't find any words besides 'uh, uh, uh...'"
Upsettingly, Jennifer hoped that the woman would notice how she was "already failing at life. I don't need her to tell me."
Once the woman had calmed down, she continued to lecture. "He was on the road. Cars come flying over that hill and they wouldn't even have seen him! You are LUCKY I came along when I did."
Upset at the thought that she'd let her child down, Jennifer later cried it out.
"It makes you sick to think that something serious could happen to your child, especially in YOUR care," she wrote.
However, she soon calmed down and realised that she was being too hard on herself; that we're all too hard on ourselves and on each other.
"It's called an accident," she wrote. "And despite an accident being an accident, mother's will still blame themselves for it and carry the guilt for life."
"But accidents happen, and when they do, people need love and compassion, not lectures and blame."
You can read the rest of her post below.
One afternoon when we were still living in New Zealand, I sat on the couch pretty much topless, as one is when nursing a...
Posted by Mama Lion Strong on Sunday, March 27, 2016
