This Mother’s Day, Moms Want to Feel Seen for the Real Labor of Raising Kids
We’re shining a light on the deep emotional and intellectual work mothers take on as they devote themselves to raising kids.
Source: RDNE
In parenting media, we often talk about the invisible labor of motherhood. The phrase conjures images of women buried under laundry, packing diaper bags, and filling out copious forms. If this woman is full-time at home, the memes get the bonus of children wailing at her slippered feet. Yes, the daily work that goes into motherhood is messy, exhausting, and sometimes tedious. But there is a less trite and more powerful picture that needs to be seen—one unique to each of us, filled with complexity and nuance, that depicts our work as deep, intense, impactful, and a source of pride.
This Mother's Day, we’re celebrating the maternal work that can't be outsourced or delegated. The kind that keeps you up at night and leads you down a rabbit hole on the Internet, wondering where the morning went. The blocks of time we spend learning and researching how to keep our kids safe. The small moments when we go out of our way to do something extra to make them feel special. This is the work that shapes motherhood into the leadership position that it is.
Our children won’t remember the time we enacted the toy rotation idea we heard about on a podcast or the lengths we went to get them to see a particular specialist to help them thrive, but they will grow up with an inner knowing that they were loved and cared for. Happy Mother's Day to each of you who labors over this quiet, awe-inspiring work.
Seeing You for All That You Are
It’s no secret that motherhood can be thankless work—so what happens when motherhood is your life’s work? If you’re resigned to feeling under-acknowledged, the problem isn’t necessarily a chasm between you and your partner. The root cause is society at large.
In nearly every household, it’s moms carrying the mental load of planning appointments, maintaining the color-coded family calendar, and if school or childcare options fall through, adjusting their own schedules on the fly. Sound familiar?
I was almost a year into being career-less before I realized the words ‘driven’ and ‘motivated’ still fit me—a woman at home—perfectly.
The Beauty In This Stage of Life
When the grief of losing her husband threatened to pull her under, it was the daily tasks of mothering that kept one writer afloat.
Ten moms revel in the joys of at-home parenting, from the moments that surprise us to the ones that sustain and inspire us. Here’s to morning walks to school and afternoon blanket forts, to spur-of-the-moment adventures and chocolate chip cookie dates. To more play—sure—but to more growth, fulfillment, and purpose, too.
The Support You Need
The motherhood-as-martyrdom cultural directive makes moms afraid of being regarded as selfish for needing time away from our kids, and worse, guilty for admitting that we want time away from them. But here’s why we need downtime—and how to build it into your day-to-day.
What can you do when you don’t have support as a mom? Experts chime in on why every mother needs a community to lean on—and how you can go about building yours.
