The mom I want to be
A little encouragement for anyone caught in a motherhood comparison trap.
Do you ever look around at all the moms in your life — and on your phone — and start to feel a little less than by comparison?
I’m not the mom who whips up elaborate craft projects on a rainy day. I’m not the mom who lifts weights with her baby looking on from a bouncy seat. I’m not the mom who has her firstborn on skis at 18 months old. I’m not even the mom who enjoys making nourishing meals for her whole family.
It’s easy to look around and take to heart all the things I’m not doing, and let those make me wonder whether I’m even doing a good job in motherhood at all.
But at some point I had to start asking myself: is her version of motherhood even something I’m actually striving for? is she (whoever she is) living out the version of motherhood that’s right for me? I mean, do I even like crafts / kettlebells / snow sports / meal prep and air fryers and crockpots, oh my?
The answer is… not really, or I’d probably be making time and space for them.
Recently I’ve been finding it helpful to intentionally think about the kind of mom I do want to be. What are her priorities, where does she find joy and purpose in motherhood?
The mom I want to be has the energy to do running races with her kids in the backyard, swim with them in the summer, and take them sledding and skating in the winter.
