Motherhood is...

 A few days ago on my social media channels I asked my community to describe motherhood in only one word. Thankfully, those ladies came in clutch as they always do and gave me ALL KINDS of words. Some I was expecting and some I wasn’t, interestingly enough.

When I threw that question out there, I knew I’d get the usual responses that truly do encompass how it feels to be a mom in such a positive way. Words like fulfilling, empowering, blessed, and strong were some that I expected to see come through. And they did. But they weren’t alone.

The vast majority of you actually gave me a very different vibe: words like wild, whirlwind, tired, chaos, relentless, exhausting, overwhelmed.

I have to be honest you guys, I wasn’t expecting that at all. Not because it isn’t true, but because we as mothers are really good at focusing only on the positive when describing our journey in motherhood to the people around us.

When someone asks us how we’re doing, we tell them we are getting by just fine. When someone asks us how our kids are doing, we tell them they are great. When someone asks us how it feels to be a mom, we tell them it’s the best job in the world.

And we aren’t lying. But we aren’t telling the whole story either. Because that’s what we are designed to do as mothers - display the good and hide the hard.

In fact, we do it every single day for our kids. We show them all the good the world has to offer because it’s our job to raise them to be brave and strong and fearless. We push them to do all of the things that we ourselves are too scared to do, and we pick them up and dust them off when they fall. Because they are living in the best time of their life - the time before the world becomes mean and scary and awful around every corner. They are living before the anxiety and the fear and stress that comes with being an adult. With being a parent.

We keep all the bad for ourselves, and put on a good face for our children. And I think we get so darn good at compartmentalizing that it ends up being that way for every single person in our lives.

Hold the bad, and give the good. We probably don’t even notice we are doing it anymore.

We don’t want people to think we’re ungrateful for the blessings we’ve been given. We don’t want people to see us complain or fall short or be negative. Because moms are superheroes and we want to be seen that way.

But the truth is, we’ve made Mother’s Day about the facade rather than the truth. Which is that motherhood is amazing, but it comes with a whole huge dose of HARD AS F***.

It’s not beautiful when we’re overstimulated and overtouched with little people constantly talking over each other to get what they need at every waking moment. It’s not blissful to be sleep deprived and dehydrated because your needs come after you care for your littles. It’s not fun to worry about every decision and every choice and how it will effect them today, tomorrow, and the rest of their lives. It’s not amazing to feel the weight of the world’s darkness so your kids don’t have to. It’s hard.

And the amazing thing about moms is that we do it anyways. We look into the face of overwhelming adversity, and we move forward with conviction. We find those perfect little moments in the middle of all that hard, and that’s what we show to the world.

But maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t feel so bad about showing the world how freaking strong we are to deal with all the other crap. You guys trusted me enough to share those feelings, and I think the rest of the world should understand them too. Because when we keep it inside, it’s a really easy way for us to feel isolated and alone.

The truth is that we all feel these things at one point or another. We all feel the chaos and the overstimulation and the exhaustion and the frustration. It doesn’t make you a bad mom, it makes you human.

We love being moms, and we are rockstars. But sometimes we don’t feel like it, and that’s ok too. Our kids are still loved, healthy, and happy. And acknowledging all those feelings might just break down the walls to those around us and make it a whole lot less hard and lonely.

If you take nothing else from this blog remember this: you can feel the hard and still love being a mom. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

So show the good and the bad of motherhood. Feel the ups and the downs and know they are normal. Know that this job is all the things.

Motherhood is blissful, bittersweet, exhausting, hilarious, empowering, messy, incredible, relentless, overwhelming, selfless, unconditional, and heroic all at once. And that’s what makes you so dang amazing for doing it.