So long as there are people living on this planet and the existence of differences of opinions, there will be mom-shaming.
Unless you live under a rock, you will at one time or another experience it. The guilt is real and cuts like a knife. It reaches down into our very souls and squeezes with a force so powerful that our nerves tense up and the blood in our veins begins to boil. It’s the feeling, more than the words themselves, that leave a lasting impression on our heart, mind, and sometimes our soul. It can and has shaped many of us, for better or worse, into the moms we are today. Some days we might not think about it at all, while other days it creeps into our every thought like a pestering fly we incessantly swat away.
Mom-shaming can leave you with doubts, questions, worries, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and regret.
Most of us spend each day doing the best we can. We’re not perfect and although we may have learned to give ourselves a little bit of grace, let’s be honest, none of us feel like our best is enough, even on a good day.
Mom-shaming can leave you with doubts, questions, worries, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and regret.
Motherhood is hard. Parenting is hard. Nurturing the relationship with your children and significant other without losing yourself to it all, is hard. It’s all hard.
What no one tells you before you have kids is that the easy moments are fleeting.
We begin this voyage into motherhood truly believing that there’ll be a day or a moment when we feel like we’ve “arrived”. When it’ll seem like we have most of it figured out and it’s pretty much smooth sailing. We’ll feel like real parents and not frauds who’ve secretly been faking their way through this journey with a sneaking suspicion that one day someone’s going to figure out we’re incredibly unqualified and at no point did we ever really know what we were doing.
What no one tells you before you have kids is that the easy moments are fleeting.
They know and they’re coming for us.
Their mission: to reveal the woman behind the curtain. The one who wakes up every day in a state of concern and overwhelming—sometimes crippling—anxiety the moment our feet hit the floor and we set off to face the endless responsibilities stretched out on the path in front of us.
They know and they’re coming for us.
It’s a path we chose and probably dreamed into reality. And we’d choose it again, day in and day out. But it’s grueling and exhausting. It leaves us feeling both immensely satisfied and positively unversed.
It’s proof that we’re all a little nutty. To love something so passionately even though it can cause us so much stress and heartache. So is the way of motherhood.
Now, take a moment to think about the worst mom-shaming experience you’ve encountered on this journey. Who’s there causing the damage? Who is yielding the sword that stabbed so deeply it reached the very fiber of your soul, yet left no visible wounds? The cut that still hurts to this day. The one that aches more than any broken bone or flesh wound ever has. Who is that person for you?
Your friend?
Your sister?
Your mom or mother-in-law?
An acquaintance, stranger, enemy?
Or is it you?…
Are you reciting the negative comments over and over to yourself like an actor preparing to enter stage left?
Are you the person routinely telling yourself you’re doing it all wrong, you’re ruining your kids, you’re not doing enough or you’re doing too much?
If we’re being honest with ourselves, most of us would agree that we are that person.
We wake up in a state of anxiety we may have traveled to unwillingly, but not without a map charted from our own self doubt and criticism.
We put ourselves here. We allowed our minds and hearts to be molded by the fears and guilt projected onto us by ourselves and others. Fears that very seldom come to fruition and guilt that’s most always unwarranted.
We wake up in a state of anxiety we may have traveled to unwillingly, but not without a map charted from our own self doubt and criticism.
Are your kids loved and do they know it?
Are they fed, cared for and bathed (most days at least, right?)?
Show me someone who grew up in a loving home—or homes—who believes their life was ruined because they didn’t go on enough vacations, weren’t involved in enough extracurricular activities, didn’t earn enough A’s, have enough toys or go out to eat enough. What even is enough? And how do we know when the amount has been reached? Is there a bell that rings or a timer that buzzes? How will we be alerted that we’ve arrived on level “enough”?
Asking for a friend because I know I’ve never acquired that tier of leveling up.
It’s a mom-sham, not mom-shaming, that’s really keeping us down.
Living life with unattainable goals that we shame ourselves for not reaching. Well I say shame on us for expecting the impossible from ourselves. Shame on us for criticizing the woman inside who’s trying her best and is simply asking for grace to be served for dinner a few nights a week instead of the plate of imaginary slop we keep feeding ourselves. It’s garbage that’ll never leave us feeling satisfied.
It’s a mom-sham, not mom-shaming, that’s really keeping us down.
Let’s make a pact here and now.
A pact to smile at ourselves in the mirror instead of nitpicking our imperfections, mainly the ones below the surface. A pact to laugh at our own mistakes and to offer ourselves a second chance.. and a third chance.. and as many as it takes after that. Let’s promise to offer the same kindness to ourselves that we’ve been teaching our kids to show others. The very same kindness.
Because this gig is hard y’all, and grace will always taste better than garbage.
The Log Farmhouse 