I'm looking at the painting and the word that keeps coming to mind is "balanced". Both mom and child are each carrying their load. It doesn't look easy, but nothing bad is happening. Everyone is moving forward together...well the goat maybe not so much :) I'd like to think they are heading home to a warm fire. In my family we used to have a family gathering for mothers day. Now that my mom is gone we don't do that and it's kind of sad. This year my little sis called me the night before and said let's go have lunch together. So we ditched my hubby had a nice lunch and got our nails done. We decided it was our mothers day since we are mothers of cats. Shh - I really like what you wrote: "although nobody is ever the perfect parent, and I am probably far from it, maybe it's okay for me to feel a little bit proud of how hard I have tried to ensure that I broke that mould". That speaks to me two ways. First it makes me think about my mom and how even though I loved her and miss her very much, I don't want to live my life the way she did...constantly in fear, disparaging her body and denying herself the ability to accept a non-perfect life. It also reminds me that I don't have to be a perfect parent to myself. That I can be proud of the way I'm learning to mother myself even though I'm far from perfect. Thanks for sharing. Hope everyone did OK today.