No. 6: Letting Go of the “Good Mother” Ideal

There’s a version of motherhood we’re handed long before we ever become mothers.

She’s always calm.

Always selfless.

She knows exactly what her child needs, exactly how to soothe, exactly when to pause and lean in.

She is endlessly patient, always present, emotionally available, and never resentful.

She never loses her cool.

She never questions herself.

She gives, and gives, and gives. And for a while, I tried to be her. I didn’t question the weight of that ideal—I only questioned why I couldn’t seem to live up to it.

The Pressure to Be Good

The pressure to be a good mother seeps into everything. How we feed, how we speak, how we discipline, how we schedule, how we play, how we show up emotionally, physically, and socially.

It’s a million expectations layered on top of each other, stitched together with fear—fear of messing it up, of being too much, of not being enough.

So we keep trying. We read the books. We scroll for strategies. We absorb the opinions. We hold ourselves to impossible standards while telling ourselves, quietly, that other mothers are doing it better.

And when we finally break down, it feels like our fault. As if the system we were handed wasn’t broken to begin with.

What I’ve Learned Instead

Motherhood cracked me open—but not just in the soft and poetic ways.

It cracked my sense of control.

My belief that if I just “did it right,” I could avoid the hard parts. But here’s the truth I’ve come to:

Being a good mother doesn’t mean being perfect.

It means being real.

It means noticing when I’m dysregulated and repairing when I can.

It means showing my son that feelings are safe, even the big ones.

It means making space for my own needs too—not just his.

Sometimes it means turning on a show so I can breathe and other times it means saying “I need a minute” instead of pushing past my limit.

It also means apologizing for a sharp tone and showing him that love doesn’t mean getting it right all the time—it means coming back.

The good mother ideal never taught me how to be human. But my child? He teaches me that every day.

Letting Go, Gently

I’m still unlearning the rules I thought made me good.

I’m still working through the guilt of not doing it all, not loving every second, not always having the energy. But I’m learning that what my child needs more than anything—is a mother who is present, not perfect.

Emotionally available, not emotionally depleted.

Loving, but with boundaries.

Soft, but rooted.

And I can’t become that version of me if I’m constantly performing the ideal. So I’m letting go of her.

The version of me who tried to meet every expectation and lost herself in the process.

I’m choosing something more honest. More whole. And maybe—just maybe—that’s what a good mother really is.

If you’re holding yourself to impossible standards, let this be your permission to tell yourself: you’re already enough. Not when you get it perfect. But now. In the mess, the repair, the realness.

—Steph