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Parenting

25th Mar 2022

One mum’s emotional post about the effects of mum-shaming will stay with you

Trine Jensen-Burke

Motherhood is a joy, but it doesn’t come with a handbook.

I love being a mum.

I knew from way back when that having a family is something I wanted, and I can hand on heart say that being a mother is by far the most incredible thing that has ever happened to me.

However – and this is a big one – I will also be the first one to admit that motherhood, much as it is lovely, is also hard.

So, so hard.

And not just “I-haven’t-had-a-full-night’s-sleep-in-months-I-can’t-watch-another-episode-of-Paw-Patrol-I-am-drowning-in-laundry” hard. Much as all those are hard too. No, it is hard on so many other levels too at times.

When you worry about them making friends. When you worry about snapping at them again this morning because they take HOURS to get out the door to school. When you feel like your head might explode because you are the keeper of all the information (appointments, play dates, PTA meetings, booster shots,  vegetable aversions, homework projects – you name it, you got to be on top of it).

Motherhood is a privilege and a joy – but boy is it hard sometimes too – and often, I think, as mums, we have to watch closely who we dare complain to, let down our guard with, because admitting how hard we find it at times might just make you vulnerable to being ‘mum shamed’ and judged for saying out loud what most of us think inside at times.

I once came across this Facebook post and it just hammered it home, really, this constant fear of having to watch what we say as mums and just how easily we are being judged for what we say.

So in the spirit of Mother’s Day, have a read of Charity Beth’s post in full below. And let’s all make a collective motherly promise to be a little kinder and more empathetic to each other… and to ourselves.

When a mother says she’s tired, that’s all she meant!

She did not say she wants to drop her son and forget that he or she exists.

When a mother says she wanted some time alone, just her, that’s all she meant!
She didn’t say she’s sorry to be a mother and that motherhood was a mistake in her life.

When a mother says she needs help to get things done, that’s exactly what she meant!
She is not saying that she is incapable.

When a mother makes noodles for dinner, it does not mean she does noodles every day of the week and that her son/daughter is a child who does not know vegetables and meats.

When you arrive at a mother’s house and face disorganization, it doesn’t mean that every day that house is disorganized.

When a mother says she’d love to go out with her friends, that’s all she meant! She doesn’t want to go back to being “Single / not a mother” and like it as if she had no responsibility.

When a mother says she’s worried and afraid, that’s what she meant! She didn’t say she’s going to falter, and much less she’s a coward.

When you listen to a mother screaming, it doesn’t mean she just screams, probably she has spoken 300 times with normal voice tone.

When you see a nervous mother, on the edge of madness, doesn’t mean every day she’s in that situation.

There is a whole context, a whole situation.

Do not invent untruths to judge someone, let alone a woman who every day, at all times, gives up her own life to live the life of another being that she knows is much more important than her.

In the world, there is no human being able to give up and donate as much as a mother!

And they deserve a lot of understanding and fewer trials.