Children are our teachers and expose all our unhealed parts. I remember going through these feelings too and know that your awareness means you’re growing and changing. Hooray! We are all good mothers doing the best we can. 💗
Thanks for sharing this piece. I have also come to learn that perfect mothering doesn’t exist but I am a good mother - I reflect on my motherhood show my kids love and repair when I snap and that is enough. This piece tells me you are a most definitely a good mother too. 😍
Dear Emma, you are a good-enough mother and you need to tell yourself that many times throughout the day. Get your husband to tell you that, too. I did and he did and it helped me immensely.
I think we need to ditch these black and white distortions: labels of “good” and “bad” for “mothers” or even emotions. It’s an unnecessary strain on top of everything else. I try not to think in those terms anymore.
We yell from time to time. We all have breaking points. To me acknowledging my own emotions out loud has been the game changer, because it accepts and validates the feeling, it models for them that all emotions are valid, and the final step is to apologise if we did wrong. Make amends and try to fix those ruptures. It teaches them that we all make mistakes. We’re all human beings. That that’s ok as long as we fix them if they’ve been damaging in any way.
Before I knew it, I started catching these emotions earlier before they exploded out in a rage.
And if it’s truly ongoing therapy is a great place to have space to talk about those issues specially if it comes from childhood. I’ve been in and out of therapy for years now. Highly recommend. It takes such an offload of our shoulders.
Things changed immensely in my house when I started to name what I was feeling out loud. Repair is such an important thing and I think naming what we feel when we feel is so important, I do think that is why my son can label and name his emotions confidently. Therapy is an amazing tool, it really helped me find my footing in motherhood.
“So much of what makes me feel like a ‘bad’ mother stems from my sensory sensitivities. My kid is being himself, and it is too loud for me. My kid is being himself, and it is too much information for my brain to process. My kid is being himself, and I am bored out of my mind playing the same game for the fifteenth time.”
I feel this daily!!!! I also felt unloved by my step mom who yelled allllll the time. It’s wild to think it took 30 years, but I understand her better now. Life really has a way of coming full circle. Cheers to being a human mother 🥂 We are all doing our best and it is enough.
I really resonate with this. I also lose my temper and yell and thought it would make me a bad mother. I was almost afraid to have kids for this reason. But I agree that the most important thing is that you repair. We are all human and lose our tempers from time to time. Just the fact that you are analyzing your mothering shows what a wonderful mother you are.
Repair is such an essential ingredient to motherhood and life as a human. It shows we know we messed up and we can do our best to take responsibility for it.
This is beautiful and a conundrum I am wading my way through constantly. I know there is healing and peace within it, so I keep wading but damn is it hard.
my(unwritten)book🙄🤣 is based entirely around this idea of being a good mother, specifically when you have not met your own expectations—the late understanding of being neurodivergent, and all that it unearths in our understanding of mothering and being mothered…it’s a lot! 🥹
Children are our teachers and expose all our unhealed parts. I remember going through these feelings too and know that your awareness means you’re growing and changing. Hooray! We are all good mothers doing the best we can. 💗
They are our teachers!
I love your reframing about a human mother. So many beautiful, raw insights in this piece. Thank you for sharing it!
Thank you for reading it!
Thanks for sharing this piece. I have also come to learn that perfect mothering doesn’t exist but I am a good mother - I reflect on my motherhood show my kids love and repair when I snap and that is enough. This piece tells me you are a most definitely a good mother too. 😍
You are too kind! Reflection, love, and repair - I think that sums it up.
Dear Emma, you are a good-enough mother and you need to tell yourself that many times throughout the day. Get your husband to tell you that, too. I did and he did and it helped me immensely.
My husband tells me all the time, it is very helpful.
Lovely and important reflections. I wrote a while back on the importance of repair. It’s literally the only parenting “strategy” I believe in.
https://open.substack.com/pub/onetiredmother/p/the-most-important-parenting-strategy?r=22tzy&utm_medium=ios
Me too, I am saving that post to read.
I think we need to ditch these black and white distortions: labels of “good” and “bad” for “mothers” or even emotions. It’s an unnecessary strain on top of everything else. I try not to think in those terms anymore.
We yell from time to time. We all have breaking points. To me acknowledging my own emotions out loud has been the game changer, because it accepts and validates the feeling, it models for them that all emotions are valid, and the final step is to apologise if we did wrong. Make amends and try to fix those ruptures. It teaches them that we all make mistakes. We’re all human beings. That that’s ok as long as we fix them if they’ve been damaging in any way.
Before I knew it, I started catching these emotions earlier before they exploded out in a rage.
And if it’s truly ongoing therapy is a great place to have space to talk about those issues specially if it comes from childhood. I’ve been in and out of therapy for years now. Highly recommend. It takes such an offload of our shoulders.
Things changed immensely in my house when I started to name what I was feeling out loud. Repair is such an important thing and I think naming what we feel when we feel is so important, I do think that is why my son can label and name his emotions confidently. Therapy is an amazing tool, it really helped me find my footing in motherhood.
“So much of what makes me feel like a ‘bad’ mother stems from my sensory sensitivities. My kid is being himself, and it is too loud for me. My kid is being himself, and it is too much information for my brain to process. My kid is being himself, and I am bored out of my mind playing the same game for the fifteenth time.”
I feel this daily!!!! I also felt unloved by my step mom who yelled allllll the time. It’s wild to think it took 30 years, but I understand her better now. Life really has a way of coming full circle. Cheers to being a human mother 🥂 We are all doing our best and it is enough.
Life really does have a way of coming full circle! You are not alone in this.
I really resonate with this. I also lose my temper and yell and thought it would make me a bad mother. I was almost afraid to have kids for this reason. But I agree that the most important thing is that you repair. We are all human and lose our tempers from time to time. Just the fact that you are analyzing your mothering shows what a wonderful mother you are.
Repair is such an essential ingredient to motherhood and life as a human. It shows we know we messed up and we can do our best to take responsibility for it.
This is beautiful and a conundrum I am wading my way through constantly. I know there is healing and peace within it, so I keep wading but damn is it hard.
It is so hard.
Thankyou Emma. A chapter of
my(unwritten)book🙄🤣 is based entirely around this idea of being a good mother, specifically when you have not met your own expectations—the late understanding of being neurodivergent, and all that it unearths in our understanding of mothering and being mothered…it’s a lot! 🥹
When you write it, I want to read it because clearly I relate to all of those themes!
Thank you
You're welcome!
Thank you, I am glad these words helped to soothe your inner critic.