One weekend nine years ago, my (then much smaller) family moved into our current home. A rainy Friday night brought the unloading of trailers and our first sleepover in our new home. On Saturday, during the unpacking of boxes and all that goes along with it, my then 4-year-old daughter decided to teach her then 19-month-old sister how to walk down stairs. Having just moved from a one-story apartment, my toddler, of course, did not have enough experience to step down stairs, and immediately fell. It was only a distance of three stairs, but her reaction was enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room where, through x-ray, a break was found near her right wrist.

The next day was Mother’s Day. We were the new family at church with the little girl with her arm wrapped (until the swelling went down; later that week it was plaster-casted). After church, while sitting on the same stair, my baby fell again. This time, she had broken her leg.

My memory of that Mother’s Day is sitting on the floor, helpless, in the hallway outside the x-ray room at the hospital. “Our policy is that you aren’t allowed in there with her,” they had said.

“I was here yesterday. I know what this must look like. I swear, we just moved into a house with stairs . . .” I trailed off. There was nothing I could do. They took her into the room and left me in the hallway while they scanned her entire body to look for other breaks. I sobbed into my arms, folded on my knees.

I felt like a failure as a mother, and completely out of control. I felt like I knew nothing about being a mother.

(As it turned out, in scanning her entire body they found a break near her right elbow, which, in comparing with the previous day’s images, they had missed.)

Before I was a mom I had an idea of what I wanted my life to be like. I knew I wanted to be a mom (natch), but the accuracy of my planning pretty much ended there. My kids would be perpetually well-behaved and gorgeous and amazing and brilliant, never a hair out of place, nails always perfectly clean and trimmed. Clearly, much of my planning involved what motherhood looked like from the outside, because that’s where I had been: outside of motherhood. From that perspective I knew that my kids wouldn’t hit, or yell, or be sassy or rude. Those kids with a perpetually runny nose? Not mine. Mine would be experts at their chosen interest, whether it be dance or swimming or guitar. When I saw other mothers with their children I’d take mental notes about what I thought were ineffective and weak parenting methods. My kids would NEVER. There I was: I was a mother who knew everything.

Things, of course, changed once I actually became a mother. One of my children used to get extreme leg cramps during long car rides, or randomly in the middle of the night. Another fell off her scooter, knocking out her top front four teeth. Another was born with moderate hearing loss in both ears and, as is common with hearing-impaired children, would throw colossally unbearable fits both in public and at home. Not long ago I called 9-1-1 because I couldn’t find my youngest child (who was found hiding under her bed). And, in the culmination of all things my life was NOT supposed to be: my first son passed away.

Since becoming a mother I have experienced joys I never thought possible, as well as heartbreak that no one should endure. Indeed, this is a definition of motherhood. So this year for Mother’s Day, may I suggest a gift? Give a mom a break. Every mother you see, whether or not you happen to be a mother yourself. No matter how it looks from the outside, it’s impossible to tell where she is on her journey (like all of us); maybe she’s at a point where she’s confident in her abilities, or maybe she feels completely at a loss for what her next step should be. Give her a vote of confidence. She’s doing God’s work, and she needs all the encouragement she can get.