Being a mother is hard. Period. End of sentence. No other words needed. It is hard. I have been a working mom. I have been a single mom, working a full-time job and putting myself through school mom. I have also been a stay at home mom for one baby. And a stay at home mom for four “babies”. And a mom of twins. I have been a stay at home mom with a husband that travels and is gone more often then home. I have been a mom of a child with health struggles and a mom of a child with anxiety struggles. And this is what I have learned. It is all hard.
Often, we compare our lives to others, and we say or think things like, “her motherhood situation isn’t as hard as mine because of this or that.” I know I am not the first woman and mother to talk or write about this and I am sure I won’t be the last because we still don’t quite get it. We need to stop comparing our motherhood journey with everyone else’s.
It was hard for me because I felt like I was missing out on something that other mothers got to experience.
When I was working part time and full time what was hard for me is, I wanted to be there for everything. I wanted to be able to volunteer and do the fun activities and the play-dates. Instead I worked outside the home and had to commit to my job when I was there, and the activities were often during the times I worked. Now I did get the occasional day off for a field trip or class party here and there but that was few and far between. It was hard for me because I felt like I was missing out on something that other mothers got to experience.
Being a single mom, working full time and going to school full time was also challenging for me. The “hard” in that was feeling like I never got to see my daughter. I truly missed out on the extra activities and putting her to bed. I just couldn’t be available when I wanted to be. During that season in our lives my focus needed to be on something different to better my little family of me and my daughter.
It is just as hard as before, just the parts that make up this chapter of my life were different.
Four and half years ago our family moved from one state to another and in that move our lives changed again as it has several times since becoming a mother. I became a stay at home mom for the second time and my husband started traveling for work. This brought with it a different hard. It seemed all the responsibilities of maintaining our home and family fell on my shoulders most of the time. Then we had twins and we became a family of six and I have often said it was the hardest thing I have ever done. But when I remember all the different seasons of my motherhood journey, I realized something. It is just as hard as before, just the parts that make up this chapter of my life were different.
The pressures we women face as mothers in this world are challenging enough.
I think it is time that us mothers start cheering each other on and encouraging each other. The pressures we women face as mothers in this world are challenging enough. Do we really need to turn on each other, compare each other and put each other down?
I have experienced different challenges and aspects of motherhood that some mothers will never experience but that does not mean that motherhood is any harder for me than those mothers that didn’t have the same experiences. Just like other mothers have gone through some really difficult times that I will never experience and that doesn’t make motherhood more difficult for them. The challenges are just different.
There have been several topics on social media centered around what is harder being a stay at home or a “working” mom. There was a time I would jump in and join the conversation and plant my feet and demand that these women see that what I was experiencing was worse. Looking back at that I cringe. How is that type of conversation even fruitful. It only brings about anger and resentment towards those that are not experiencing the same things. And honestly, for one mother, being a stay at home mom may have been easy whereas working was harder for her. And then there is the mother who loved working outside the home, and it was easier for her to do that then being a stay at home mom.
We are all different. We all have different experiences.
We are all different. We all have different experiences. Even if the situations are similar, how we experience them are going to be different because we are simply different people. Similarities yes, but still different.
As mothers, we all face hardships. The challenges of juggling the schedule to make sure everything is done. Which diapers should we use? Is breast feeding or formula feeding the best way to go and then being judged no matter the decision we make even though not everyone understands the circumstances and reasons we chose what we did. Pacifiers or no pacifiers? And the list goes on.
We all face the isolation whether it be as a working mom and going to an activity at our children’s school and standing all alone while the other mothers huddle and laugh and talk and give sideways looks at the “working mom who is never there for her child.” The same isolation is felt by the stay at home mom who spends her entire day, morning to night, in her home and not talking to another adult for days.
All the mothers face the same criticism of being too fat, too skinny, too hip or not stylish enough. We are either too much of this or not enough of that. We all face the judgement of others from those that don’t practice an open mind and have an ignorance to what that chapter in your life is really like. And we are all ultimately trying to do what is best for our family.
We should build each other up and praise the great jobs we are all doing.
My thought is this, let’s give each other grace. Let’s show each other understanding or empathy for whatever season of motherhood we are in at that moment. We could offer help or show kindness when we see someone struggling. We should build each other up and praise the great jobs we are all doing.
This picture was captured after two hours of trying to get excited children calmed down. This shows the hard but also a cherished moment with children!
What if we stopped judging each other and built each other up?
Knowing that we all have a difficult job as mothers should be what unites us, instead we use the different aspects of the difficult to tear each other down. What if we stopped judging each other and built each other up? I would think that kind of comradeship would help make this difficult and hard motherhood journey even more bearable. After all, we are all doing the most important job of all, and it is the same, we are all raising the next generation of mothers and fathers. It just may look different. And that’s OK.
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