“You’re Doing a Good Job”

I dashed into the grocery store the other day. Wasn’t planning to – sweats, flaccid mom bun, absolutely ZERO makeup.

And had the most delightful conversation in the produce section with a friend who sees my older children regularly.

“𝘠𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘬𝘪𝘥𝘴” she told me. And this lady is a tell-it-like-it-is kind of gal, not one to dole out empty platitudes. She went on to list specific positive character traits of each of my children, which are accurate.

Moms especially need to hear this, because it addresses one of our Biggest (often unspoken) Fears – that we’re screwing our kids up, or we’ll have failed them in some critical area of Life. Maybe because we do know our kids so well, and see them at their absolute worst (and they us!), we miss recognizing the Good others see?

We literally don’t know what we’re doing!

But the vast majority of us are doing our Best.

I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions (although I 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 started adopting a Word for each year), but maybe after the past 2 years, we could agree to call out the Good we see in others. Imagine the potential impact.

What would it mean if a stranger commented on your well behaved or polite children? What does it mean when a Teacher takes the time to send a GOOD note home? What would it mean to let a manager know one of their employees was especially helpful?