How to feel like a good Mom all the time
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Do you lay awake at night and think about the things you failed at each day? Do you wonder if you are Good Enough - a good enough parent, a good enough partner, a good enough employee?
I used to run this list every single night before I fell asleep. What I did wrong. What I didn't do at all. Where I tried, but did badly. Where I didn't have enough time or energy to even try.
Where I was harshest to myself was around parenting. In my own judgement, I was never kind enough, patient enough, present enough. No matter what kind of day we'd had, it was never good enough for my internal judge to allow me to see myself as a good mother.
I was anxious, I felt guilty, and I started dreading any time I had with my child, afraid of how I’d mess it up. I questioned every step of my day.
This is a crippling way to live. I'd wake every morning, not filled with excitement about what I could accomplish each day, but cringing with anxiety about all the new ways I would let down my daughter and myself. I had lost track of my ability to acknowledge the things I was doing well, and only saw the ways I was failing.
But I know now that there is another way.
Something Had To Give
My turning point was after reading The Good Mother Myth.
In the introduction to this book of essays, the author tackles the idea of what we, as a culture, consider a Good Mother to be. These are the standards we have built up, based on our cultural expectations and media influences, of how a mother should behave with her children and in the world.
It is behind the divide over working moms and stay at home moms. How we perceive single mothers, helicopter parenting, Tiger Moms and that mom on her iPhone at the park - our level of acceptance or outrage is based in these deep-rooted Good Mother standards.
We each have our own set of standards, based on our experiences, surroundings, and inputs.
But that collective vision of a Good Mother is mythical. She simply isn't real - she can't be. She's based on picking and choosing from many different sources of influence, and not an actual real person with feelings and emotions and struggles.
We each have our own set of good mom standards, based on our experiences, surroundings, and inputs. That standard is just as likely to be impossible and unfair, but we use that personal standard to measure ourselves against as well as other moms around us.
We judge others for failing to meet the criteria we hold up as the measure, and we judge ourselves just as harshly. Even though the measuring stick we are using is impossible, unreasonable, or unfair.
No one can measure up to the mythical Good Mother we have created.
Am I Good Enough?
After reading that book, I started questioning my assumptions more. What standards was I holding myself to? Where did I feel like I was failing?
Here is the Good Mother standard I had been using to judge myself:
My child must always be well-behaved and tidy in public or it is a negative reflection on my mothering skills.
I should love floor play, pretend play and reading picture books. I should jump to participate whenever my child asks me to.
I am solely responsible for the running of the household. That includes shopping for and cooking food, cleaning, decorating, gardening, and all budgeting and saving.
I must always feed by family fresh, organic, wholesome and balanced meals cooked from scratch.
I should always have the energy and desire to maintain an emotionally intimate and sexually active relationship with my man.
I must know - or know where to quickly find - the answers to all my parenting questions. This includes health, behavior, and mental and emotional development questions.
I should have a close and active tribe of mother-friends who I see often. We should be close enough to share child care and secrets about our lives. We should never drift apart - having busy lives is not an excuse.
I must be slim, fit, and look put together at all times.
I should never make my child cry by withholding my attention from her.
My child should be enrolled in a variety of enriching activities - music, art, dance, yoga and playgroups.
It is my personal duty to build my child’s self-esteem, confidence, manners and emotional and creative resilience.
I should commit myself to these duties full time (24 hours/7 days). I left my career for this!
I should not need help with any of this, and I should feel, at all times, fulfilled and happy.
It was watching that last item on the list flow from my pen that was the sock in the gut.
Self judgement in my head is insidious and subtle. Written down on paper I can see how outlandish and unfair some of my own judgements are.
You get to define what a Good Mom is
Creating that list was powerful. I could suddenly see the gap between what I believed - and what I wanted to believe. Somewhere deep in my heart I still believed that just being a mother should be enough for me.
And I was beating myself up with that belief.
As much as I talk and write about how mothers deserve support and help, that motherhood may not be entirely fulfilling for all women and that mothers need to feed their souls lots of different ways, there it was.
Writing it down and looking at it isn’t the same as letting it go. But getting a clearer view of my own struggle between what I felt and what I believed has helped me pay attention when I hear that self-judging voice whispering in my ear. It helped me say, “Yes, thank you for trying to help me be a good mom, but I’m still working out that definition. I also want to be a Good And Joyful Human."
Over and over I chose to ease my judgement of myself.
Now, more often than not, I am completely confident in how I show up as a mother.
I know this is possible for you, too. Sure we all have rough days, but having that deep confidence to fall back on? That makes all the difference in recovering from those moments.
The place where you worry most that you are Good Enough might be parenting, or it might be something else.
You have the power to analyze the standard you are holding yourself up to. You get to decide, consciously, if that's a standard you agree with. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be a better version of yourself, just make sure that the guidelines you are using are realistic.
When you dig deep down and look at what you think you need to do or be to be Good Enough, what is on that list?