A Bad Mother

Tyler and Aubrey were at our house Monday evening and I gave them a “Scripture Stories” page to color while we read from the Book of Mormon. Amy looked at the pages and said, (paraphrased, as I remember it) “Ah, I remember these. One time you gave me one of these to color and I colored all the pictures the same color. I started out pretty neatly, but realized that it was going to take me forever, so I kind of scribbled the rest. When I was done, you told me you were disappointed in me, because you thought I would do a better job. I was so sad and shocked, because I had always thought no matter what I did you would think it was wonderful.”


Jeff and I had just been talking earlier in the day about “at what point little children had to learn the world was a cold, cruel place and that their parents were not perfect.” The realization that I would not always think everything she did was wonderful was apparently Amy’s “Aha! moment.” I felt so terrible when she told me. I had never known that for all these years. The funny part about it was that when I was getting the Scripture Stories out for Tyler and Aubrey, there were a few in the folder that were colored.

I pulled this one out, showed it to Amy and smiled. She said, “THAT was it! That was the ONE!” Too funny. But kind of sad, too. It made me feel like a “bad mother.”