Heidi Klum has been deemed a super mom after she saved her son and two nannies from drowning at the beach on Sunday, but are we all over reacting to the heroine rescue by deeming her as a super mom for pulling her son to safety?
By now I’m sure everyone has heard of the daring rescue that Heidi Klum made to save her son and nannies when a strong wave pulled them out into deeper waters.
In case you haven’t here’s a recap:
Heidi took her family , including her 7-year-old son Henry, to the Hawaiian beach when tragedy hit. A large wave pulled the young boy away from the shallow waters along with two of the star’s nannies.
Luckily, her bodyguard boyfriend Martin Kirsten was also at the beach with the family and was able to aid in the rescue.
Heidi and Martin pulled everyone to safety and luckily her little boy was good enough of a swimmer to fight against the strong waters.
“We got pulled into the ocean by a big wave,” Klum said. “Of course, as a mother, I was very scared for my child and everyone else in the water. Henry is a strong swimmer and was able to swim back to land. We were able to get everyone out safely.”
Now don’t get me wrong, I commend Heidi for jumping into the ocean to save her son but the entire time I read the story I couldn’t help but ask myself: “What mother wouldn’t?”
The super model is suddenly being deemed the mother of the year for doing what any mother would have done if their child had been swept away by a large wave.
We tend to have such low standards for parents in Hollywood that pretty much any good they do is seen as miraculous and extraordinary.
I know mothers who barely know how to swim who have dived head first into pools and lakes in order to save their children, so why are they not quite as super as Heidi?
In the book “Good Enough Mothering” by Elaine Heffner, she explains that instincts such as this are natural for all mothers because all mothers have the urge to be not just “good enough” but to be perfect as well.
“I see mothers trying to be perfect: ‘Good enough’ doesn’t feel good enough,” the psychotherapist and parent educator in New York writes. “Perhaps, deep down inside we all wish life could have been perfect for us as children that we should be able to make life perfect for them. But we can’t – and that makes us feel guilty.”
In other words, although mothers can’t give their child the world on a silver platter they can certainly try by any means necessary.
Every mother wants their child to feel safe and secure and that’s why those motherly instincts would tell any mom to jump into the perilous ocean waters in order to bring their child back to safety.
Now I’m not at all saying Heidi is a bad mother. Honestly, I do think she qualifies as a super mom, but not because she jumped into the ocean to save Henry’s life.
It’s everything else, like the fact that the kids were with her at the beach in the first place. Or the love and affection she shows them on a daily basis.
Truth is, there are super moms all over the globe and they don’t all come in the body of a super model or come with bank accounts fat enough to take their children all around the world; but what they do come with is strength, love, compassion, understanding, and selflessness.
Super moms are the mothers who wouldn’t hesitate not only to face physical challenges, but to face emotional ones as well. The mother from the suburbs who doesn’t hesitate to leave her husband of 20 years because he was emotionally scarring her children even though she had no place to go is a super mom. The mother who comes home from a nine hour day at work and still greets her children with a wide smile, tight hugs, and lots of love and attention even though she really would love nothing more than to go into her room close her door and enjoy some quiet time for a little while is a super mom. The mom who would give up pedicures, shopping, trips, a new car, a night out on the town, and other luxuries just to provide her children with a joyful childhood is a super mom.
It’s great to hear that Klum was ready to dive in to a scary situation for the sake of her kids, but that doesn’t make her any different from all the other moms who face their own versions of perilous waves every day and jump in fearlessly head first for the sake of their own families.
