“Your Hard Is Hard” and Moms Against Moms
23 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Motherhood
Here is a thoughtful piece written by a mom on the pitfalls of insecurity, pride, and unnecessary competition that us moms sometimes get ourselves into. One section reads:
Being a part of the online mom space has made it very clear to me that motherhood often becomes a competition born out of this need for validation, one in which the goal is to win some kind of internal reward that can never be won this way. We wouldn’t have The (ridiculous) Mommy Wars that are always playing out if this weren’t true. It’s there. Validation is so hard to come by and then we get desparate for it and shake our fists at each other in false comparisons, forgetting that comparing always ends as a loss.
Lose-lose.
I don’t care if you work at home all day or work out of the home or if you do or don’t co-sleep or breastfeed or attachment parent or helicopter parent or have 1 child or 17 or have teens or grown children…mothering is hard, and when we look at each other with that in mind and with compassion at heart we win-win. It seems simple but we get all tripped up by our need to be seen. Look at me running, look at how it never stops, please say you see me.
Motherhood is a (terribly repetitive and grueling and absolutely beautiful) race with a photo finish tie and we all end up at the same place. With all of our heart’s desires for our kids and the pressure and the heavy weight of responsibility and all of its grown-up things. The reality for all of us, every single one, is that we fall through the finish line and then we get up and start over again. We are mother marathoners.
This kind of hard that is equal is a result of a love we never could have expected and that is how we tie. I am running this marathon with all mothers and I look around and I see that all of you are carrying some enormous things on top of simply running which is hard enough on its own and I see you.
You can read the whole article here.
