"How can I... When this.."

I have had several moms in several different places in life pose this question that they have or have been trying to answer. I, too, was tormented by the question. "How can I be here, doing this, serving these kids, these people, when my own kid(s), my own family, my life.. is going through all this?" Why do we ask this, why do we feel we failed or we aren't enough? Where does this sense of inadequacy come from? We are doing the best we can with what we have. We love our kid(s), our families. We strive to give them strength, help them find their voice, advocate for them, teach them to advocate for themselves and help them be good, kind independent humans. Somewhere in doing that, we succeeded! We loved and supported our families, we gave them a voice and independence. They are good, kind humans. They are humans with their own mind, own ideas, own curiosities and spirits. We forget that with all those things we have to also give them room to grow, room for error, room for them to learn from bad choices, mistakes and consequences. They help US to grow in grace and patience. They force us to figure out how to balance pride and humility. They help US to be able to do our job from a more effective, genuine, compassionate and empathetic perspective.
The answer to that question is we are here doing what we do, because it is valuable, meaningful work that impacts the lives of those around us. We should be the ones who do it because we are raising or have raised little humans that take risks, love life, are curious, make mistakes, fail, accept responsibility and move forward regardless of how difficult the road may get.
We are here because we fit- they need us and we need them.