Are You Mom Enough?

Oh, Time Magazine.  Brilliant cover, I will give you that.  A provocative photo that is meant to open the dialogue about attachment parenting will definitely open the dialogue about a lot of things.  But I don't know if any of it will be good. 
I have no beef with the mothers photographed for this story.  It is not for me to say how long you should breast feed your child.  I have no beef with attachment parenting.  Mainly because I have no idea what that is.  I do have a huge beef with the photographer of this article for choosing a photo that will do nothing more than rile people up.  There are millions of meaningful ways to portray breast feeding a child.  There are millions of ways to introduce people to different parenting styles.  But he choose a photo that will cause a lot of unproductive nonsense.
But what bothers me the most about this entire magazine cover is the title "Are you mom enough?"  Am I mom enough to breast feed a three year old?  I don't know?  The opportunity never came up.  I did breast feed all of my children, and happily so.  I went into it not knowing how long I would nurse, but as we progressed, I decided that I would let nature take its course and we would both know when the time was right to ween. 
Am I mom enough to have a family bed?  There were plenty of nights where my bed was everyone's bed.  And it was that way not because a doctor wrote a book telling me that it was a good idea, it was that way because I knew it was what we needed as a family at that moment. 
So am I mom enough?  Well, I am going to go out on a limb today and say "yes". 
I am mom enough to choose to take on the roles of mom and dad when Danny deployed.  I took care of one, then two, then three babies often on my own and often far from home.  I often had one, two, three extra people in my bed.  I don't know other parenting style philosophies, but my philosophy was, and is, that snuggling and Rogers and Hammerstein can take care of a lot of things.
I am mom enough to share with my children the difficulties that I have had with my self esteem, with the pain I have inflicted.  I have let them know on numerous occasions that I am anything but perfect.  And they think I am mom enough to get another chance.  And another.  And another.
I am mom enough to see my children through their most challenging times.  
I am mom enough to raise three amazing kids that will go on to live incredible lives.
And as I write this on Mother's Day, I am naturally drawn to thoughts of all of the moms that I know that are enough.  You know who I am talking about.  The moms that do the very best they can day in and day out without a magazine cover, without a controversy, without a spot on the Today Show.