In honor of Mother's Day, I'm dedicating today's Peaceful Parent Happy Kids Weekly to you. Yes, you. Because as a subscriber to this newsletter, you're a parent who is so dedicated to your child's well-being that you're willing to grow and change yourself. That takes commitment, courage, and a whole lot of love.

You're doing the toughest work on the planet. (If you're a Dad reading this, your day is coming soon, but everything I'm saying applies to you, too.)

So today I send you my deepest appreciation. You are changing the world, one child at a time. I know that what you do often seems invisible. I know that your child has no idea how much sacrifice is required. I know that you don't get the recognition you deserve. But every act of love makes the world a better place and has a ripple effect. And what is parenting but extreme love in action?

The famous psychiatrist and pediatrician D.W. Winnnicott said that children don't need perfection from their parents; all we need to do is to avoid harming them, and to offer them the “ordinary devotion" which has always been required of parents.

What Winnicott didn't say is that there is nothing ordinary about a parent's devotion. Devotion, as parents know, is walking the floor at 2am holding a screaming baby with an ear infection. Devotion is taking a deep breath and re-centering yourself when any reasonable person would scream. Devotion is forcing yourself into the kitchen to make your kids dinner after a long day, when all you really want is to curl up on the couch and go to sleep. Devotion is biting your tongue so often you get a piercing. Devotion is taking off your jacket on a freezing night to tuck it around a sleeping child in the back seat of the car.

This ordinary devotion is the same intense love that has caused parents throughout human history to hurl themselves between their child and danger, from flying glass to snarling wolves to enemy soldiers.

The pay, however, makes everything worth it. Mothers get paid in pure love.

So enjoy your day today. And tomorrow, remember that every day is your day!