The expectations on mothers strip them of their humanity
I prompted mothers in my community to complete the statement "I'm a great mama AND" to remind them that one misstep or even a few missteps do not define their worth and value as women and mothers. What I noticed in their responses was the insidious nature of the perfect mother ideology.
Mothers expressed guilt or even shame for looking forward to time without their kids, for taking a night out with friends, for feeling overwhelmed and angry by boundary violations, for looking forward to bedtimes, for feeling frustrated, for losing tempers in challenging moments, for lacking empathy when they were at their most depleted and vulnerable.
These are all normal human experiences. They do not indicate pathology nor do they equate to being a "bad" mother. If we were to look at the responses on an individual level, we might miss what was visible to see when so many mothers responded to the same question.The thread across all the responses was that they weren't enough. They weren't patient enough, calm enough, they didnt enjoy time with their kids enough, they didn't sacrifice themselves enough, and that they were selfish to need time to themselves.
Cue the shame..
The perfect mother ideal where we love every moment of mothering, always sacrifice our needs and desires for those of our children and families, cook perfectly balanced meals from scratch, where we never feel anger or frustration or resentment or overwhelm can only be achieved if we are robots, removed of our humanity.
But I want you to know that your greatest tool in weathering the storms along your mothering journey is your self compassion. Self compassion will allow you to remember your humanity so you know that you're not along in your struggle and in your missteps. It will allow you to remember that repair is available for ruptures in your connection to your children (and yourself). Self compassion will allow you to disentangle yourself from patriarchal ideals about the perfect mother. Self compassion will allow you to seek out help when you are no longer coping.
Self compassion is such a powerful tool in mothering that using it will radicalise you. Simply showing ourselves compassion goes directly against patriarchal ideals of perfect mothers because it insinuates that mothers actually have needs of their own. If you struggle with being compassionate with yourself you can try these two things to build more compassion into your self talk:
Ask yourself what you would say to show compassion for a loved one who was in your position.
Ask yourself what you would have liked to hear from a stronger, kinder, wiser adult when you were a child and you had made a mistake.
Mama, you are not a robot. You are a complex human being with complex processes happening all the time. Just because you are a mother doesn't mean your humanity vanishes. You are going to feel angry, you are going to require time to yourself or away from your kids, you're going to occasionally flip your lid, you're going to have to apologise and say you were wrong... but this is what makes us humans. It is important for our kids to see these human experiences (with safety and repair when needed) so that their own human experiences are normalised and manageable for them.
Making mistakes is part of being alive. Your life and your mothering is a sum of many parts, not a tally for when you haven't lived up to some bullshit martyr ideal.