Your Motherhood belongs to you

Motherhood

My hand is pressed eagerly against my stomach. There it is. The littlest thump. The thought of you being here soon begins to settle in. The excitement that usually greets me in this moment is nowhere to be found. Instead, there is an endless line of emotions waiting to take over.

This begins to feel familiar, like I have been in this very position before, holding the door open to what I thought was "normal" or simply the natural flow of things. It's as if my mind, body, and spirit have already rehearsed this scene. The one where I stop dreaming about bringing a baby into the world and begin worrying about everything that comes with it.

The lighthearted joy quietly packs its bags to make room for what is coming. My moms know exactly what I mean. It isn't the baby I'm worried about. It's everything that seems to arrive before the baby does. The opinions. The judgment. The expectations. The questions. The unsolicited advice. The subtle comments that make you second-guess yourself before you've even had the chance to trust your own instincts.

None of these things arrive alone. They carry baggage of their own. Guilt. Fear. Comparison. People-pleasing. Resentment. And perhaps the heaviest one of all, doubt. Not doubt about whether you'll love your baby, because that part comes naturally. It's the doubt that whispers, Am I doing this right? It's the doubt that convinces you everyone else knows something you don't. It's the doubt that slowly pulls you further away from the mother you were becoming.

Somewhere along the way, motherhood became something women felt they had to defend. Every decision seemed to require an explanation. Every boundary needed justification. Every instinct was measured against someone else's opinion. Whether it comes from family, friends, social media, or complete strangers, the message is often the same: there is always someone ready to tell you how they would have done it.

And little by little, many of us stop asking ourselves, What feels right for my family? Instead, we begin asking, What will everyone else think? That is where so many mothers quietly lose themselves, not overnight, and never intentionally, but one opinion at a time. Before long, the motherhood they imagined has been crowded out by everyone else's expectations, until they can barely hear the one voice that matters most: their own.

Personal vs. Public

How many minutes has it been? You are too nervous to turn over the test, but you needed the answer. There they were, two little lines staring back at you. Your world changes drastically in that moment without you even realizing it. Because, let’s be honest, emotions take over that moment immensely. You have zero time to think about all the changes that are about to occur, but the world as you knew it has shifted. For some of us, the thought of how everyone else is going to feel enters your mind. Excited? Upset? What will they say? There is something to be said about that.  Somewhere along the way, motherhood stopped feeling deeply personal and quietly became public property. The moment of announcing one of the most intimate and happy experiences can quickly turn into a press conference. Your pregnancy starts to feel like a

community meeting where everyone gets a say. No one tells you that one of the hardest parts of pregnancy isn’t carrying a baby; it’s carrying the expectations of everyone else along side them. Your pregnancy becomes an open house, front door wide open for everyone to bring in their opinions, warnings, and expectations. Before you know it, your voice is the hardest one to hear. Everyone believes that their experience should become your roadmap, and everyone wants a vote as to how things should go. When did we begin believing that motherhood belonged to everyone else?

The Inheritance

The generational divide between the ways of the past and the ways of the present have a huge impact on our motherhood. The thing I want to say is that the belief that parenting has changed in a negative way simply because it changed is not a fair assumption for those of us navigating a completely different world than the parents before us. The truth is that no one way is perfect. No one way of parenting is fully correct, and even if it worked for you, that does not mean it works for every family. What someone did back then may not apply to the now. In this fast paced-information saturated world, parenting has evolved, and that is ok. The beautiful thing about humans is that we are always capable of learning, as long as we are willing to. No one has all the answers, and some of us are just doing the best we can with the information given to us. Every generation hands the next one something to take with them. Traditions. Wisdom. Fear. Guilt. Expectations. Although, not everything handed down is positive. Not everything handed down is helpful. We do our best to take the good and respectfully leave the bad, but somehow that can get tricky. Simply, because we choose different. The generations before us parented with the information they had. Now, we parent in a different world, with ever-changing, sometimes conflicting information. Now, we know different things. Now, we understand different things. Mental health. Safe sleep. Trauma. Attachment. Child development. Safety involving children in general has drastically changed, and mostly because the world has changed. Sometimes we inherit things we never realize we were carrying until we become parents ourselves. Sometimes we have to unlearn old ways and learn our own way. That doesn’t mean that we are rejecting those who raised us. That is where some of us get lost in feeling like we are going against our own parents by choosing differently. Choosing our own way and our own parenting style simply means that we are continuing to learn, continuing to adapt and evolve. It means that what once worked may not work in the world that has forever changed, or that there may be a better way to do things. It isn’t a competition between generations of who did it better, and just because people are doing things differently, doesn’t mean that they are saying the ways of the past were wrong. It is a choice: a choice that every parent, every father, and every mother are allowed to make for themselves. The best thing we all can do is to be willing to learn, be curious about what is changing, and allow those around us to choose their own way. Maybe, honoring the generations before us doesn’t mean repeating every choice they made. Maybe, it means carrying forward what we feel in our hearts to be good and having the courage to lay our own path.

The Cost

It only takes a window being left open just the slightest bit, for a thief to enter your home. Motherhood isn’t usually stolen dramatically or all at once. It is taken, piece by piece. One comment at a time. One comparison. One guilty feeling. One “that’s not how we did it.” One social media post. One family gathering. Suddenly, she doesn’t trust herself anymore. No one sets out to abandon themselves. It happens slowly, beneath the weight of trying to make everyone else comfortable. The focus leaves “what is best for my child,” and suddenly becomes about the comfort and feelings of everyone else. Mothers lose their own identity and children lose what may be a better option for them. We all have our own instincts and our own discernment that allows us to develop our thoughts and beliefs. As moms, we are told to trust our gut, but then expected to still listen to what everyone else believes and thinks. It can be overwhelming. The truth is that most moms know their kids better than anyone else. They make decisions based on that individual child and what would be best for them. Who are we to say that they are wrong? The cost of making a mother doubt herself reaches far beyond parenting decisions. It slowly begins to shape how she sees herself. Doubt rarely makes a grand entrance. It whispers unwelcomed thoughts, slowly convincing a mother that everyone else’s voice deserves more trust than her own. It begins the slow erosion of her confidence, until she begins to question the very instincts that were always meant to guide her. The cost becomes heavier. Mothers can lose their voice, lose their way, and lose themselves in the fight for her own motherhood. And, the real cost? Her mental health.

A mother’s mental health isn’t separate from her motherhood, it is woven into it, stitched in, telling a story of her own experience. It answers the question, what does she think of herself? A mother’s mental health doesn’t unravel all at once. More often than not, it begins with the question, Am I enough? This thought tends to creep in when the opinions of the world start making their way into your home. All of the questions, the judgments, the feelings, the expectations of others begin to chip away at what you have built within yourself. Your own beliefs and feelings that formed from your own experiences and your own sense of self, begin to fade away because we are taught to sit and listen to what everyone else experienced. At times, we are also expected to follow what other people feel is right, and then feelings are hurt when a different choice is made. Instead of trusting themselves, and listening to their own voice, many moms will appease those around them in order to not rock the boat. This situation becomes so common, and is what leads a lot of moms to abandon themselves. It isn’t easy to speak up, speak out, and let others know what you want your motherhood to be like, especially when you know that those people already have expectations in place. Motherhood is already difficult and overwhelming, and then adding in a rocky situation that makes them uncomfortable or frustrated just adds a level of stress that is unfair to give them to carry. The cost begins to get heavier: she begins to apologize for the decisions that she shouldn’t have to explain, she stops trusting herself, she begins to believe that other people know her child better, her peace slowly becomes negotiable. When a mother begins to doubt herself, her identity becomes fragile. Every comment picks away at her self-trust until she no longer recognizes the woman in the mirror. Identity is everything when it comes to mental health. When you ask a mother to question herself, place expectations on her of how you think she should be doing it, or create doubt in her mind, you are doing more damage than you may think. Self-doubt is the beginning of identity loss, and once a mother loses their identity, their mental health declines.

The final peace

We often tell mothers to listen to their instincts but rarely protect the things that allow those instincts to flourish. Confidence. Rest. Support. Encouragement. Grace. Instead, we insert our unwavering opinions and firm expectations, and then wonder why so many mothers are anxious, overwhelmed, and constantly questioning themselves. Maybe, it is about time that we push our own stuff aside and allow other moms to find their own footing, build their own home, and respect that it was always their choice to do so. The greatest gift we can give a mother is not more advice, not another opinion, another warning, or another story about how we did it. The greatest gift we could give a mom is the space to become herself. Let her make mistakes, learn from them, grow from them, and build a home that reflects the values that she has chosen for her family. Give her the space to build the trust in herself that she is capable of becoming the mother that her child needs. Because, motherhood was never meant to be lived through as a committee meeting. It was never meant to be measured by how many people approve of your decisions. It was simply meant to be yours. Quietly. Imperfectly. Intentionally. Yours.

So to every mother carrying the invisible weight of everyone else’s expectations, lay them down, keep the wisdom, leave the guilt, hold onto what serves your family, and release what doesn’t. You don’t have to carry everything that other people hand you. Some things were never meant to be yours to carry. It is ok to say, “thank you, but I trust myself enough to make my own decisions,” and hand it right back.

She is still there. The woman that was so excited and happy about becoming a mom. The woman that was making her lists of all the things that she wanted in her motherhood. The woman that knew what she wanted and was confident in her decisions. The woman who dreamed about the kind of mother she hoped to become before the world told her who she should be. Somewhere beneath all of the opinions, comments, and expectations, she still waits to be heard. She was never lost. Everyone else’s voices just became louder than her own.

To all my moms navigating motherhood and all that comes along with it, I hope you remember that she is still there. Allow her to come home to herself. Because, your home belongs to you. Your peace belongs to you. Your healing belongs to you. Your family belongs to you. And your motherhood? It always belonged to you.

With so much love, and always in your corner,

– Danielle, Awellmom

You were always enough. 🤍