‘M’ Is for the Many Ways to Stress Out : Ann Linthorst--parent, author and counselor in Orange--reminds women that motherhood is a process of self-discovery and growth.

For the many women who harbor a secret desire to be perfect mothers and are constantly falling short of their own unattainable standards, it’s going to be tough to take all the gratitude and praise that is likely to come their way this Sunday.

If they seem a bit distracted during the Mother’s Day festivities, it may be because they’re busy counting the demerits they’ve given themselves for such shortcomings as not being attentive enough, losing their temper, being too strict or permissive, running out of energy, worrying too much, overreacting, overprotecting, pushing, meddling, criticizing, clinging.

What mothers who are their own toughest critics need is a new way of looking at their maternal role that enables them to stop focusing on their mistakes and start celebrating their achievements, says Ann Linthorst, a marriage, family and child counselor in Orange.

A mother of two college-age sons who has struggled with plenty of self-doubts over the years, Linthorst has learned that the pressure to be perfect is relieved when motherhood is seen as a process of self-discovery and growth rather than a job to be performed with the skill of a seasoned professional.

In her recently published book, “Mothering as a Spiritual Journey,” Linthorst points out that the anxieties and feelings of inadequacy that plague mothers can be traced back to the beginning, when they bring their first child home from the hospital with the idea that “because this baby is here, I am supposed to be a full-fledged, graduate Mother, knowing how to handle anything that may come up.”

Linthorst writes: “Do we, enrolling our children in kindergarten, expect them to already know what they will know when they graduate from high school? Of course not. Well, then, we can assume that it is not required of us either.”

Linthorst speaks from experience when she explains that, “The discoveries made at each stage of motherhood prepare the mother for the next stage, just as the child’s mastery of each level’s developmental skills or tasks prepares him for the next (stage). . . . Watching our babies and toddlers rushing to meet each new developmental task, impelled from within and undaunted by the bumps and falls along the way, provides us with the inspiration for our own development.”

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One Orange County mother who has attended a number of Linthorst’s parenting workshops said she would have welcomed that kind of reassurance when her two children were little. Marilyn, who requested anonymity, admits: “Motherhood was very exhausting for me because I was frightened a lot of the time that I wouldn’t do it right. Sometimes I’d become angry with the kids because I was unsure of myself.”

With Linthorst’s help, she gradually developed more confidence, and today, as the young adults in her household are preparing to leave home, she can say with satisfaction, “I know I did the best I could.”

Linthorst, who has a master of divinity degree and completed a three-year residency in psychotherapy at the American Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry in New York, says motherhood can be an “extraordinary adventure” for those who are able to approach it from a positive perspective, expecting the best from their children rather than fearing the worst.

Nothing interferes more with effective parenting than fear, Linthorst noted during a recent interview.

“If we’re afraid, then our children are afraid. If we can just manage our anxiety, then we can see that our first task isn’t what we do to or for our children, but what we do in our own thinking.”

Mothers need to confront the crises that come up at every stage of their children’s development with a sense of peace and confidence that everything will work out, Linthorst said.

She initially titled her book “The Marvelous Crisis of Motherhood” because “every one of motherhood’s crises can yield for us the discovery of a marvel, something really wonderful about life that we had not been seeing before.”

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She first became aware of the marvels of motherhood many years ago when her new-mom anxieties began to fall away as she found herself and her infant sons engaging in teamwork that, to her surprise, came naturally.

“Babies tend to evoke what they need, and, as we respond in the simplest ways to their needs, we begin to discover our mothering qualities.”

As Linthorst addressed her babies’ needs, she learned that mothering means “being attentive, loving, intelligent, responsive, supportive, affirmative, encouraging and playful.”

The more she was able to express those qualities as her sons grew, the more responsive they were to her efforts to help them recognize and make the most of their own strengths.

Linthorst said that the teamwork that occurs between mothers and infants can continue at every stage of development--if moms don’t create an adversarial relationship by becoming overly controlling. Mothers should focus on understanding their children, not managing them, she stressed.

Mothers who are controlling run the risk of forcing their children to move forward before they’re ready, thus inciting rebellion; it’s far better, Linthorst says, to try to understand children’s needs at each stage of growth and respect the inner timetable that sets the pace of their development.

This became clear to her when her sons were young boys learning to swim. One day while vacationing at a mountain lake, she watched her oldest discover, with no help from anyone else, that he could float. The picture of how effortlessly Tommy picked up this new skill--and how pleased he was with himself--was still vivid in her mind when she took Erik to his first swimming lesson and he refused to go into the water.

The instructor wanted to force him, but Linthorst wouldn’t allow it. She and Erik watched the lesson from the sidelines, and she felt sure she had made the right decision when she saw the anguished look of another mother whose son was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the pool.

The next day, Erik joined the class without hesitation, thus affirming his mother’s belief that “no positive step needs to be forced.”

A mother’s job is not to determine what her children should do when, but to provide opportunities for them to experience and express what they are ready for as they make their way to maturity, Linthorst said.

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Marilyn, who is a third-grade teacher, pointed out that some mothers end up being pushy because their own sense of self-worth is threatened when their children fail to keep up with their age group developmentally. “That’s where control comes in. We try real hard to have our kids do what everyone else is doing.”

If mothers could stop comparing and competing--and resist the impulse to fulfill their own hopes and dreams through their children--they would be able to do more nurturing.

“It’s so much more fun to be a parent when you can watch the beauty of someone growing and not have your personal identity and self-esteem resting on how they come out,” Marilyn said.

A change in a mother’s perspective can make an enormous difference in the behavior of her child. Jan Kovac, a 52-year-old mother of three who has long been a believer in Linthorst’s positive approach to parenting, discovered that when she was having trouble with her middle son a number of years ago.

“When he was little, we got into tangles all the time,” she recalled, admitting she sometimes became so frustrated with him that she felt like screaming.

Kovac, who lives in Santa Ana, thinks her middle child would be an angry man today if she hadn’t realized that, “If I change the way I perceive him, he might have room to be different.”

She had been boxing him into the role of a difficult child. “As long as I saw him that way, he’d behave that way.”

When she began to look at him as “a loving child with a challenging personality,” he began to settle down. Today, Kovac said proudly, “he’s the most loving grown-up I’ve ever met.”

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Maintaining a positive perspective is particularly important during the turbulent teen years, when too many parents start looking at their children as a “crazed and alien species,” Linthorst said.

“It helps if we remember that this developmental stage is happening to and through our kids; it is not something they are doing to us.”

Teamwork at this stage of development involves mutual respect, trust and lots of dialogue, according to Linthorst.

“My kids knew that anything could be talked about. That didn’t necessarily mean I would change my mind or agree with them, but they knew they would never be expected to obey simply for obedience’s sake, like little soldiers.”

Linthorst advises mothers who find themselves dwelling on what can go wrong during the teen years to remind themselves that, “Even when our kids seem to be in rebellion, the basic values and qualities that we have lived and instilled in them are a much stronger influence than we or even they may realize. We have to have confidence that those values are going to see our kids through the minefield of teen-age life.”

Now that her sons are grown and she is facing an “empty nest,” Linthorst can fully appreciate how rich the experience of mothering has been.

“The great gift of being a parent is that you are privileged to be a partner in the blooming of lives all along the way. That’s what I wouldn’t trade for a million dollars, even though it seems so hard and scary at times,” she said.

She hopes the qualities she has developed in the process of raising children can now be put to use in a broader context, through her personal efforts to reshape a world that she feels is in desperate need of more mothering.

“A society that values and celebrates the loving qualities inherent in the mother-child relationship is oriented toward unity, support, affection and spontaneity,” she said.

Whether she is cultivating beauty in her garden, doing volunteer work, teaching, counseling, serving as a mentor or sharing insights through her writing, she plans to make the most of the discoveries that have made her a champion of motherhood.