The Beauty in the Challenges of Motherhood
Photo by Leslie Parker
I’ve struggled with what to write on this Mother’s Day because, if I’m honest, I’ve had a pretty rough year as a parent. A year when, a lot of the time, I haven’t felt like the greatest mother. A year when it’s been tough to find the balance between my adult responsibilities and my ability to be present with my children. A year when I’ve counted the minutes until bedtime when I can take a deep breath and hear my own thoughts. A year when my fuse has been shorter than I’d like more of the time than I’d like. A year where I vacillate between heart-exploding joy and awe of how amazing my children are, and the head-pounding overwhelm of everything that motherhood entails. The back-and-forth is exhausting.
A couple months ago I wrote a post on Facebook about how I was having a hard time being a parent. I was terrified to post it … I thought I would be publicly shamed. Instead, that post got the most positive response I think I’ve ever gotten on my Facebook feed. (It even led to requests for me to start this blog!) People both with and without children jumped in to offer support, encouragement, and gratitude for my honesty. Because as it turns out, we ALL feel that way sometimes.
Lately I have been trying to walk that line of honesty, vulnerability, and gratitude.
To acknowledge when things are hard while still living into my profound gratitude for my children. Because that’s life. It is hard and it is beautiful, all at the same time. Nothing is black and white.
Relationships are not all sunshine and rainbows all the time (and anyone who tells you they are is both lying to you and setting you up for a lot of pain and suffering). Relationships have ups and downs. They are challenging. They will push every one of your buttons. They will hold a mirror up to your face and show you all the ways in which your soul has room to grow. And that includes our relationships with our children. (Let’s be honest – ESPECIALLY our relationships with our children.)
Just because my kids are 5 and 1.5 does not make them any less of a mirror for me. In fact, it’s probably more so. When I am struggling, in the moments when I am most challenged, that is my greatest growth edge. The fact that I struggle with motherhood sometimes does not mean that I am a terrible mother or that I should not have had children at all, it means that I signed up to do the big work. Struggle is how we grow and evolve. The more I lean into those challenging moments, acknowledge them honestly, move through old patterns and allow myself to do the self-examination and personal growth that comes with them, the better mother I am.
Photo by Sheila Mraz Photography
Photo by Sheila Mraz Photography
Moving through the challenges of parenthood makes me even more grateful for my children – because they are the Great Teachers who are helping me become the best person I can be. And hopefully, I do the same for them.
So thank you all for granting me the space to process the hard parts of being a mother. Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for your support. Thank you for chiming in with all of the ways you struggle, too. We are on this Growth Journey together. It really does take a village.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there. Whether you are joyful today or struggling, whether you feel like an amazing mother or a terrible one, we are all in this together. We all have good days and bad days. And this one day out of the year does not define us – nor does it truly acknowledge the extent of what we do or who we are to our children on a daily basis. Every day is Mother’s Day. I hope that today, at least you get some flowers and some good fancy chocolate. And tomorrow, when we wake up to do it all over again, all the little things that may never be fully seen and acknowledged, know that I see you – ALL of you. And you’re perfect, exactly as you are. Keep going.
And if you can, try to find gratitude for all of it. Even (and maybe especially) the challenging parts. It may feel hard while we’re in it, but when we look back on everything I think we will realize that the challenges are part of what makes the journey so great.
