This Mom’s Viral Selfie Shows the Honest Truth About What It Means to Be a Parent

Sometimes being a parent can get a little overwhelming. Just ask Kara Lewis Newton, a mother of three from Fishers, Indiana.

When Newton was getting her kids ready for school on Nov. 21, she realized she forgot to get her 6-year-old son, Jack, chopped celery for his soup-making activity at school. Without having any celery at home, Newton sent her son to school without the supplies.

“But we didn’t have any at home,” she told Today, “so I sent him to school without it. I felt badly.”

Once she dropped her son off, Newton ran to the market and bought a bunch of celery. She quickly returned home to chop it up and then ran back to his school “praying that he gets it on time.”

However, before she got to the school, Newton posted a selfie with the freshly chopped up celery confessing all of her parenting mistakes. She wrote that sometimes she forgets to “RSVP to parties” and admitted that “there might be Halloween candy in their lunches.”

Instead of dwelling on the negative, Newton got honest sharing just how much she loves her three kids and how hard it is to be a parent.

“But…I love them. And I work dang hard for them,” she wrote. “And I’m banking on the fact that 20 years from now, they won’t remember that their mom forgot the chopped celery. I am praying they remember how hard I fought for them everyday to have a good life…one where they know they are fiercely loved no matter what.”

Newton’s post quickly went viral with other parents relating to her struggle.

“They will remember but they will laugh and know they were loved!!” one commenter wrote.

“The struggle is very real. And with reading this I realize I’m not the only one,” wrote another.

Newton decided to share her post on social media after “feeling overwhelmed.”

“I work full time, I keep the house, I have three kids,” she said. “I was feeling I was not doing everything for my kids, but I thought if I feel that way, there are other moms who feel the same way, too.”

She continued, “We all talk about how guilty we feel as moms a lot of the time. I wanted other mothers to know we’re all in this together. The most important thing we do for our kids is how we make them feel, which is loved.”