10 Reasons Why It’s Hard Being a Mom (and what you can do to change it)
It’s hard being a mom. I hear it and you hear it all the time. It’s a message we’ve taken on fully as moms—the celebration of mom memes, #momlife shirts, and the #motherhoodishard movement. What does it sound and look like?
“May your coffee be stronger than your toddler.”
“I scream. You scream. We all scream because we have kids.”
“I live in a madhouse run by a tiny army that I created myself.”
“Yoga pants, messy buns, more coffee. This is mom life.”
“I can’t wait until my kids are in preschool so I can get my life back.”
“Cherish every moment, kids grow up fast.”
At this point, you might be shaking your head in agreement; “Yeah, I so agree. Being a mom is hard.”
I feel the overwhelm too. In fact, let’s look at 10 reasons why it’s hard being a mom—and the real reason motherhood is hard. You might be surprised.
10 Reasons Why It’s Hard Being a Mom
- You feel like you’re a punching bag, the picker–upper of endless messes, and that you never have a moment to yourself (except when you hide in the closet to sneak your favorite cookies—stroopwafels and chocolate chip cookies are my favorites).
- Coffee, coffee, coffee. You can’t be a good mom without your coffee. Starbucks anyone?
- Time to yourself? What’s that? Taking a shower is a luxury. If you can’t be clean you might as well be comfortable in soft comfy yoga pants. I’ve had these yoga pants for over 10 years before I threw them out!
- Imposter syndrome—you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing and someone is going to discover the truth.
- Comparison creeps in. You feel like you don’t measure up to all those moms that have it all together.
- You meet your kids’ needs first. When you finally think about yourself you exercise “self care” with an occasional pedicure. I use a healthy beauty regime and have no regrets.
- It feels really lonely at times. Sometimes it’s FOMO (fear of missing out)—that moment that you see a picture on social media with all of your friends who got together, but didn’t invite you. Other times it’s FOBLO (fear of being left out) —when you look around and it seems like everyone else has deep meaningful friendships but you’re excluded.
- Thank you, isn’t something you hear often, if at all.
- You’re never getting ahead. All of your hard work taking care of the everyday stuff feels at times like it’s so mundane.
- You fear that you’ve lost yourself in motherhood.
I’m with you. Girl, I’ve felt every single one of these things that gives feeling to why it’s hard to be a mom. But, there’s a very subtle, yet unfortunate truth behind all of these reasons.
The Real Reason Why Motherhood Is Hard
It’s hard being a mom, because we have created a culture that defines, celebrates, and reinforces that it’s hard to be a mom.
This culture tells us that if you enjoy motherhood—you’re not being real. It’s a culture of negative soil that cultivates a victim mentality. We tell ourselves and others tell us that being a mom is hard. All of this results in planting, watering, and sowing seeds that grow a cultural definition of motherhood.
“It’s hard to be a mom. This is motherhood.”
Our hearts long for the good parts of being a mom, meanwhile culture jokingly celebrates the hard parts as a “fun sentiment”.
If You’re Not Exhausted As A Mom—You’re Wrong
I happened to come across this saying recently. It was actually mentioned by one of my other blogger friends. I discovered that it was a picture of fabric swatch from Joann Fabrics. So I went to their site to investigate it a little bit more and what I read was even more disheartening. Under the description it read,
“With a fun sentiment, the Motherhood If You’re Not Exhausted You’re Not Doing It Right Print Fabric will surely cheer up mothers.”
Really? This “fun sentiment” will cheer up mothers?
I’m not sure about you, but this brings up in me a whole lot of emotions—all of which are not good. It’s messages like this that are all over the place in our culture. Almost mocking the fact that being a mom is hard.
Motherhood Is Challenging
At the heart of these sayings and mom memes is some truth—motherhood is challenging.
We may not get as much alone time or feel like we get any time to ourselves—but the problem with this motherhood is hard mentality, is that it is creating a victim culture that is damaging to us and our families.
Instead of embracing the present, we’re constantly comparing motherhood to the way things were before kids—what we want and what we miss.
The idea of being a mom was always a dream and yet with it has come extreme challenges. So what can you do about it?
Learn How to Enjoy Being a Mom Again
I really like how, Stacey Salsbery says it in When Motherhood Leaves You Wanting;
“It just wasn’t what I expected for a dream come true…It didn’t fill me because it can’t FULFILL me. Only Jesus can…”
How can you acknowledge those hard parts and yet more fully embrace and celebrate the good of motherhood and God fulfilling you? Here are 10 Ways to enjoy being a mom, again.
Awesome point here. I totally agree that we are losing the joy of motherhood. All we see is the difficulties, and we tend to see our children as burdens rather than as gifts from God.
Thank you, Jennifer! Those difficulties can seem SO BIG at times. Thank you, too for drawing our focus back to our children being gifts from God. So good! 🙂
This is fantastic. I think there is a fine line between being real as a mother, and being negative. I agree that there is too much negativity about motherhood in society – the message seems to be that choosing to be a mum is choosing drudgery. It’s true that motherhood is about being a servant to your children in many ways – but that doesn’t have to equate to drudgery. My example is Jesus, who served people “for the joy set before him” – the end result of bringing them into relationship with God. I can be a mother for the joy set before me – the relationship I get to have with these kids, and the wonderful privilege it is to teach someone how to “do life”, essentially. Being a mum is hard, but that’s not the end of the message – it’s hard because all things worth doing are hard, and this is most definitely worth doing.
Hannah from http://www.womanontheway.com
Thank you, Hannah! Drudgery is such a great word for describing this! I love too how you said, “I can be a mother for the joy set before me.” Beautifully written.
Such a great and encouraging post! Being a mom is hard, no matter what circumstances you have. As a working mom, I’m plagued constantly with guilt when I make plans without my son. I also feel like I miss out on too much and feel conflicted often. God definitely gives grace though and helps us see why He’s placed us where we are.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and insight! I needed it. 🙂
Thank you, Brooke! You are not alone—I hear this a lot from working moms. I just recently heard an encouraging podcast from Christy Wright talking about that challenge of being a mom and a working mom. It was a great pep talk for me too! Here is the link if you’re interested.Mom Entrepreneurs: Finding Success in Business and Motherhood