Ah yes, the perfect mother…
Everything feels easy for her. It all comes so naturally. Nothing about the stage of motherhood she is in phases her. She responds gently and lovingly at all times.
*She’s definitely not one skipped nap away from totally losing it.*
Maybe the perfect mother doesn’t have hard days, but you do…and so do I.
I recently had one of those days where everything kept adding up. In addition to some other personal circumstances (and everything happening in our country and the world right now!) weighing on me, it seemed like I was moving from one mess, one tricky sibling moment, one physical boundary crossed, one moment of sensory overwhelm to another, etc on repeat all day until I had a little (okay, BIG) meltdown after another failed nap attempt and no margin to reset.
There’s this idea that if you’re doing it “right,” motherhood won’t ever feel hard.
You won’t have hard moments or hard days. But this is just another way the “perfect mother” myth shows up in our lives.
The truth is: it’s going to feel hard sometimes.
You are a whole human with your own needs, desires, emotions, and wounds.
These don’t just disappear in motherhood. If anything, they become more pronounced.
→ So, let’s be clear on one thing:
You are still worthy on the days you cry on your bathroom floor (or by the side of the crib, or in your car, or over the dishes in the kitchen sink, or wherever your meltdown moment happens).
When you find yourself overcome by what feels hard, I want you to remember:
This moment doesn’t define you, your day, or your motherhood.
What do you do when you are having a hard day as a mom?
On the days it all feels hard, it can be so easy to spiral and wonder if it will always feel this way.
There may be hard moments and hard days, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything we can do.
Start by meeting yourself with kindness (remember, this doesn’t define you), and from there, you can figure out what you really need and decide what you want to do next.
(I have some ideas on what to do when you need a reset in this Instagram carousel from last year.)
Being a coach doesn’t mean I don’t need to follow this advice myself…it means I know the value of it because I see the impact in my own life and motherhood.
So what did I do? On this particular hard day, I …
- cried and told myself “it makes sense you feel this way”
- made myself a late lunch because it turns out not eating and/or not eating enough will make everything feel worse than it is
- separated my kids for a while (big one playing in their room, little one snacking/coloring near me)
- chose an easier dinner option with less prep and fed the kids early
- asked for space when my husband got home and went to the gym to work it out (the gym is a new one for me in this season, but it matched my energy this day!)
And perhaps most importantly, I remembered tomorrow would be a new day (and it was).
🎧 Recommended Listening
If you want to explore the space between how you expected motherhood to feel and how it actually does: my new, free 12-minute audio reflection You Didn’t Expect This is a good place to start.
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