Being a mom is beautiful, but it’s also bittersweet and difficult. It can bring a rollercoaster of emotions. 

Often, as a new mom, I felt tired, numb, and disconnected. I was emotional, felt disgusting, gross, ugly, guilty, ashamed, worthless, like a failure. I would feel like a milking cow.

But that’s not what society wants to hear. The image of the perfect mom, the happy, fulfilled, natural mother who does everything perfectly, is the standard that we all try to achieve. But it’s an unrealistic standard. 

This standard only makes us feel like bad moms. It makes us feel ashamed, guilty, and inadequate for not being able to be the perfect mom for our kids. 

The real motherhood experience is different.

It brings the whole range of human emotions. It’s about time we start dismantling the perfect mom image and start talking about what real mothers look and feel like.  

It’s not just sadness, it’s also irritability, detachment, and sometimes resentment. 

It’s feeling lonely even when you are physically surrounded. 

It’s feeling ashamed and guilty for not feeling like you are “supposed to feel.” 

It’s being afraid of being judged for what you are feeling. It’s staying silent and avoiding honest conversations. 

It’s feeling dismissed or misunderstood. It’s having your feelings brushed off or minimized because it is part of the “normal” motherhood experience. 

It’s not reaching for help because you fear being misunderstood. 

Motherhood can bring joyful memories, but it can also bring grief, identity loss, and emotional numbness. 

We need to normalize the messiness of motherhood.

We need to change the narrative and break the perfect mom culture. We need to start having open and honest conversations so we don’t feel like we are navigating this alone. 

Because that’s what keeping those taboos does: it isolates mothers. It makes us feel alone. So many times during my pregnancy, I felt lonely. So many times throughout my journey as a new mom, I felt isolated. 

Here’s the truth: you can love your child and still struggle in your role as a mother; that doesn’t make you a bad one. We need to open the conversation and break taboos so mothers don’t feel isolated and ashamed of being human. 

If you can relate to this, it doesn’t make you a bad mom; it makes you a real one. It makes you human. You are allowed to feel everything that you are feeling, and you are not alone in feeling this way.

Many mothers quietly carry these feelings and this weight alone. They don’t talk about it, because we’ve been told these feelings are wrong.

But here you don’t have to stay silent. 

You don’t need to be the perfect mom. 

You just need to be real. 

This is your space to discuss anything you have been carrying, and if you decide to share, I’ll be happy to listen.