“I’m doing my homework, Mom! I don’t know what you f**king want me to do!”My son jumped out of the car, slammed the door and stomped into school.We’d been running the same drive-to-school conversation for a month now. I’d ask in my slightly concerned mom voice why all of his homework wasn’t getting done; he’d mumble something noncommittal in response. I’d suggest in my nagging mom voice that maybe he was playing too many video games after school; he’d flatly remind me of the few assignments he had completed.My voice would squeak louder into controlling-mom voice, asking him to please make a plan for how and when he would catch up on his missing assignments.I was doing what I thought Good Moms were supposed to do — “helping” my kid be organized and successful. But my results — a screaming kid and very little progress on the homework front — didn’t exactly scream Mom of-the-Year.I sobbed as I drove to work. Why was this so hard? What was I doing wrong? We found ourselves locked in the same, crappy loop, again and again. I was failing. I was a shitty mom.As I drove across the bridge, I recalled a session with my coach a month earlier. I’d been crying over some other perceived parenting screw-up — Nothing’s changing. My kid is struggling. I must be a terrible mom — when my coach asked, “What if you believed right now, without changing a single thing, that you were a great mom?”I laughed out loud. Not once in my dozen years of mothering had I ever heard a mom exclaim unprompted, “You know what? I’m a great mom!” But here my coach was, handing me this thought like a hat — something I could just pop on then take right off if it didn’t suit me. The idea was so preposterous I couldn’t even bring myself to consider it.Yet here I was, stuck again in the same pit. My kid was struggling, and my efforts to “help” had only shut him down. Telling myself over and over how much I was messing it up didn’t seem to be getting me out of the Mom Sucks shame spiral. I had nothing to lose. Even this ridiculous idea was worth a shot.I took a deep breath and tried not to roll my eyes. “OK,” I spoke aloud to myself in the car. “What if I choose to think, ‘I’m a great mom’ right now?”I wiped my cheeks and tried repeating it aloud a few times, the syllables clunking awkwardly in my mouth. “I’m a great mom. I’m a great mom.”At first, I felt an almost physical sensation in my head, like gears screeching. After so many years of enumerating my “failures” as a mother, my brain actively fought against this new thought. Um, no. Remember how your kid is buried under a mountain of missing assignments, and you haven’t been able to do a thing about it??I knew that adapting to new thoughts can take time. And it can also sometimes help to add the words, “It’s possible…”I repeated the thought again, shakily. “It’s possible that I’m a great mom. It’s possible I’m a great mom.” Suddenly, I felt my mind begin to unfurl, stretching across the vast, accumulated record of my mothering—and new evidence began to emerge.I cared enough to bring issues up with my son calmly, asking questions, without belittling him.I was doing what I could to make sure he was getting good sleep, enough nutrition, a good education.I took real pleasure in helping him pursue his many interests beyond school.We had a tight bond — laughing together, saying I love you multiple times a day, genuinely enjoying each other’s company … when we weren’t locking horns over homework.Proof piled up higher and higher until the truth seemed irrefutable: Maybe … I was a great mom?I felt my heart break open, my eyes filling again with tears — this time, tears of grief. Grief for the me who’d been beating herself up, telling herself she wasn’t enough, for 13 years.Why had it taken so long to see what was true?I ran my mind over my experience of mothering over the years — scrolling Instagram parenting influencers, Googling concerns — and suddenly, it hit me: I’d been so immersed in our culture’s be more/do better messages for so long, I couldn’t see how hard they’d pulled me under.Buy this device to help your kid sleep, these supplements to chill them out or pep them up, pay for this program to learn how to do it all RIGHT! Mothering from that place of scarcity and anxiety, it turns out, is a ticket to feeling permanently terrible about your parenting. The toxic messages of more/better parenting don’t make it easy to see your kids as the perfectly imperfect, developing humans they are, instead of an endless improvement project.It felt incredible that day to finally, bravely claim my enoughness as a mother. To release the shame and self-flagellation I’d been clinging to so tightly, and allow myself, at last, to feel proud.Since that day, there’s been a surprising kicker: Believing I’m a great mom actually makes me a better one. When my daughter comes home handing out sass like candy, or my son has a list of missing assignments longer than my arm, I no longer have to make it mean anything about my worth as a mom or their worth as kids.I don’t have to yell, threaten or helicopter around trying to control every word, gesture and eye roll. I can simply respond the way a good parent might—by holding boundaries and affirming our family’s values: No, you can’t talk to me that way — want to try that again? You’re in charge of your choices here — what do you want to do, and would you like any help?Of course, holding onto this clear-eyed view of my mothering is a work in progress. But then again, so are my kids.Ultimately, it isn’t the responses of my children that make me a great mom. It’s the commitment I make to showing up every day and mothering them imperfectly, humanly. Messing up, recovering, disparaging my efforts, then zooming out to see my body of work as a parent on the whole — trying on that thought again — I am a great mom.It works. It’s possible you just might be one thought away from being a great parent, too.Marika Páez Wiesen is an educator, writer and coach who writes the newsletter Living the In-Between Times, where she helps readers uncover the ordinary joy and everyday wonder hidden in the in-between times of life. Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at pitch@huffpost.com.RelatedParenting