Feeling like Enough as a Mother

Leaning into Being Versus Doing

It’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you’re not enough as a mom. Particularly in this age of social media, where unlike before any other time, we can see how other types of moms are parenting their kids — or at least how they portray that they’re parenting their kids. You really can never know for sure what goes on in those homes, which makes comparison futile.

Despite knowing this, I continue to consume other mom content because I know there’s more wisdom and knowledge out there that can potentially fill my blind spots. But perhaps that’s where my problem lies — thinking that the answer to mothering my kids is outside of me, and even further, thinking that I am the source of the problems in my home.

We’ve all had rough patches in motherhood where your kids are extra fussy, and your husband is stressed out. I fall into this thinking where if only I did what [fill in mom influencer here] did, then maybe my kids wouldn’t be crying so much. As a mom and a wife, it hurts you so much to see the ones you love in pain because you feel every bit. So you want to solve all their problems. But is that really what is best for them or for you?

Stepping Out of Bounds

In one of her recent podcast interviews, Kelly Brogan (holistic psychiatrist and author of The Reclaimed Woman) mentioned how when a woman tries to solve her man’s problems, she is stepping into her masculine energy — which Kelly then jokes is why, as a psychiatrist, someone who loves to solve other people’s problems, she’s been divorced twice. I realized that’s what I had been trying to do with my husband. Not only was it not working, but it was actually counter-productive.

I was resisting my husband feeling his pain by trying to solve it and move past it, instead of being the space to let him feel it (God knows men allow themselves so little of that already). Trying to solve his problems meant carrying the weight that was only meant for him. I was overestimating my part in the situation by trying do more, instead of just be there for him. Be a witness. So I tried that, and the next day, instead of feeling weighed down by his stress, I consciously decided to let it go and leave it in yesterday’s conversation. One of my favorite hobbies is baking so I baked some cinnamon rolls and made a nice brunch. When my husband came down, he told me that that was all he needed from me to feel better. My ego was convinced me that I needed to take on his problems to feel like I was doing something, when simply existing and doing my own thing was enough for my husband.

This same idea applies to my children. Maria Montessori wrote extensively about how most of children’s development happens spontaneously through their own discovery (albeit in a proper environment). She details in The Discovery of the Child how when once a child masters the skill of forming words with movable letters, they can then naturally begin to read. Much of what I was concerned about doing for my kids was more of a task for them. My kids are madly curious, and they can easily get frustrated when they don’t figure something out on the first try. That in itself does not qualify me as a bad mother, but perhaps is more of a sign that I have given them an environment to be curious in, which is the greatest gift.

Furthermore, my husband made the point to me that the fact that my girls can so easily cry and be upset in my presence means that I am doing a good job because they are comfortable enough to feel their whole range of feelings around me. When he said that, it got to me because I did grow up in a home where I felt like I had to repress my feelings because nobody would listen or care. Perhaps, that is part of why I get so stressed when they become upset, because I had a pattern of taking responsibility for other people’s feelings.

The Feminine Wisdom

With all that being said, at the end of the day, when things get hard and my kids or my husband are feeling all the feelings, it does not mean I have failed them. Nothing else is to be done. My only task at that point is to be. Allow them to feel. Be the comfort to them, and be the example of emotional control upon which they can draw. That means I have to sit with the hard feelings myself. It is perhaps one of the hardest tasks of a mother — to watch her children in pain and not only not do anything about it but know that she must not.

Mother Mary, the OG mother, represents the ultimate example of this. She had to watch her son be physically tortured and murdered in front of her. All the while, he is telling her he is doing it in service of God, and nothing can or should be done to stop it.

Simone Rizkallah (writer at the Cultural Gypsy) wrote about how Mary is the ultimate example of the feminine genius:

“It is always the temptation of the Christian to become self-absorbed, to focus on one’s weakness, to become angry at one’s limitations, and therefore behave negatively or reactively. Especially in times of crisis it is very easy to fall into obsessions with external solutions or placing one’s hope or certainty into politics or ideology….

…At the end of the day, when all our ideologies and formulations fail, we are reminded that the other demands to be engaged on an emotional and spiritual plane.

And this is precisely the place where women are experts.

Women ground us and keep us in the right state of mind because they remind us of God when we have forgotten him in one another.”

I had certainly fallen into the temptation of focusing on myself, my weaknesses, and all the possible external solutions of the world when my family was struggling, when all that was needed was my own unique feminine genius. Something that is already within me. This is nature’s wisdom. When I try to step out of my plane and attempt to take on someone else’s emotions or responsibilities, I am defying nature’s wisdom.

In the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, the principle of wu wei, or doing less is discussed as the primary way to achieve:

"Therefore the Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go. She has but doesn’t possess, acts but doesn’t expect. When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever."

Equating Actions with Worth

Parkinson’s law, the idea that work expands to fill the time available for its completion, applies to how we mother our children. If we think our days need to be consumed with doing every little thing for our children, then they will, and we will endlessly find more and more tasks to do.

I became acutely aware of this the other day when my mom was at my house. She is such a huge help to me and my kids, but I know to expect a certain level of baseline anxiety when she’s there. I realized why the other day, when, instead of becoming consumed in it, I just sat back and watched her. This woman does not spare a second to think. She is constantly running around, busying herself with cleaning, feeding the kids, going to the store, or giving the kids toys. She can’t just sit down with her grandkids and play with them. It made me sad for her because she feels that she alone is not enough and that her worth is found only through her actions.

I realized I had fallen into that same trap. It’s quite easy to fall into as a mom. You love your kids so much, and you want to do everything for them, buy everything for them, but you physically cannot. It is a losing battle. You will spend your energy and money in poor ways, attempting a fool’s errand like that one.

I recently listened to a Lila Rose interview with homeschool mom Sarah Mackenzie, who has three successful, grown adult children that she homeschooled from preschool. She talked about how she constantly felt anxiety and guilt because there was no hard road map and clear signs of whether or not you’re doing a good job as a homeschool parent. When her three kids were at a grade school level, she had three babies under three, meaning very little book work got done for a few years. She interviewed her older daughter years later, who said that was her favorite year of homeschooling because she learned so much about real life. Sarah said it’s so easy for homeschool moms to worry if they’re doing enough, but that she believes God will make it enough.

Nature’s wisdom is above our own. We can never have a bird’s eye view while our feet are planted firmly on the ground. Being a good mom is not following some prescriptive formula but more just being for your kids. That is in itself enough. It will be made enough because the love and effort we put into them plants seeds in our children that we can’t always see right away, but are being nurtured each day.

Lessons in Lightness

I recently went back to visit the apartment we raised our first baby from six months of age to a year. It was the kind of place where when I would take my daughter outside on the balcony, we would be met with the strong stench of cigarette smoke, the sounds of police sirens, and the sight of homeless men and stray dogs on the street below. I was raised in a middle-class suburb, so the experience was entirely new for me; on top of being a new mom, having to move suddenly to a new city for my husband’s job was jarring.

I remember being riddled with anxiety that I wasn’t taking my baby out enough. One time, I decided to be adventurous and walk around the apartment complex, despite the fact that nobody else ever walked around outside (should have told me something), and I came across a coked-out homeless woman. Eventually, I found a decent park that was a twenty minute drive away, but I would only venture there the times I had the emotional energy to deal with a six-month-old baby who did not like cars and screamed her face off the whole way there and back.

Now, we are blessed to live in a single-family home with a big backyard in a suburb with plenty of beautiful parks. Yet, I find myself still feeling that constant background hum of anxiety. “The park is down the street from me, how could I be so lazy as not to have taken them today?” and more nonsense like that. Going back to our old apartment and seeing the contrast and all the things I had to deal with gave me so much compassion for the young mom I was back then and all I had to struggle with just to take my baby out. To think I was not doing enough was absurd. I was probably taking my daughter out as much as was reasonably safe for us then. To inundate myself with anxiety and regret was only poisoning my family. The idea behind taking your child out is essentially for them to enjoy life. By allowing my anxiety and fear to take hold, it was making enjoyment impossible.

As mothers, our number one priority is to protect our children, and we must honor that. But another important responsibility we are tasked with is to show our children the full extent of life and, most importantly, the beauty of life. This is the lesson that will carry with them into their adulthood, when they are far away from us, when they are in pain or alone.

When I think about those times I was in that apartment with my daughter, just me and her, while my husband was at work five days a week, I think about how exhausted I felt from all the expectations and anxiety I placed on myself. If I could go back, I would tell that young mom that everything will be okay. I would take away all of her self-defeating thoughts so that she could just be in the present moment, enjoy that time with her daughter, and allow herself to just be. I would echo the sentiment that Aldous Huxley shared in his novel Island:

“It’s dark because you’re trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them… There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly, my darling…”

Back in college, a foster parent spoke to my psychology class and said that the point of the foster care system is to find care temporarily for kids and that the ultimate goal is to always get the kids back with their parents. I remember being shocked by that. Why would you put the kids back with a parent who put them in danger? Why would the kid even want to go back? Now that I’m a parent, I see how my kids look towards me, the unconditional love they have for me and that they constantly seek from me. That love doesn’t have to be earned, just honored.

The Sacred Ritual of Play

I honor my children when I allow myself to engage with them in the present moment. When I allow myself to tap into play more. Play brings out the fullness of life. Some might say holiness is found in sacrifice, but there is another side to the coin: a special kind of holiness is found in enjoyment. Participation in the sanctity of life. Being fully in the present moment means allowing yourself to feel pain to the fullest extent and not trying to numb it or ignore it. Only then can you release it. Only then can you open yourself to enjoyment. You find yourself on a hamster wheel in purgatory when you try to avoid the pain and when you try to earn the enjoyment. In life, we will continually find ourselves in absurdities. I’ve felt pain I never thought I deserved and love I never thought I deserved, and I have let it all change me for the better. We find our power as mothers from within. When we tap into that, we can truly be a force for good in our children’s lives. Though it might feel precarious, allow yourself to feel like enough in your life and see what kind of magic you can find.