3 Pitfalls that Make Us Feel Like We're Failing Motherhood

Making it to school just in time, I jumped out of the car to help my daughter with her bag and scooter.

“Have a good day!” I said. “And try and wear your full costume!”

It was book week and dress-up day. She had chosen to be Princess Leia, so I’d spent my lunch break the previous day searching secondhand shops for floaty white dresses. I figured that and two buns over the ears would do the trick.

But as I watched her scooter down the path, passing other kids wearing incredible costumes (one even had a cat-in-the-hat hat on!), I felt like a complete failure. The floaty dress idea hadn’t really panned out, and although I’d managed to buy white leggings and cut the sleeves of a second-hand white top, the costume was, er, not my best work. And she’d refused to let me put her hair in buns.

It’s not the first time I’ve felt like a failure as a mum, and it definitely won’t be the last. Feeling like a failure seems to be part of the job description as a mom. I feel like there are far too many yardsticks to measure ourselves against.

We feel failure when our babies aren’t sleeping through the night, when they aren’t toilet trained at an “appropriate” age, and when sushi isn’t their favorite snack. When they refuse to learn their spelling words, fight with their siblings, and even when they’ve been sitting in front of the television quietly for two hours so we can catch up on housework. The guilt of perceived failure can be never-ending.

But it doesn’t have to be. I believe we don’t have to feel guilt or failure all the time.

Perhaps the first step to relief is understanding why we feel this way. What’s driving our feelings of failure?

3 Pitfalls that Make Us Feel Like We’re Failing Motherhood

1. Comparison

Comparison. It’s like eating ice cream straight from the carton. In the dark. You know you shouldn’t be doing it, but you just can’t stop! And the comparison is often unconscious. We don’t even realize we are doing it half the time.

That morning as I watched the other better costumes pass me by, I bitterly compared myself to the moms. They clearly had been working on the costumes for weeks. They’d probably even made the child cupcakes to match their costume. Heck, they had probably even sewn the dress-up from scratch! Quite simply, they had more time, talent and care for dress-up days than me.

That tirade of thoughts did nothing but serve my sense of failure.

But when I really thought about it, I realized that I hadn’t failed. Sure, the costume wasn’t the greatest. But I tried my best. That’s all I ask of my children. To try their best. “We don’t have to be perfect,” I tell them. Hmmm, about time to take my own advice.

Most importantly, I hadn’t failed at the most important part: loving my child enough to try.

When I got stuck in the muck of comparison that day, all I really needed to do was ask myself one simple question.

Do I love my kids? If the answer is yes, that’s all I need. And that’s all that they need.

2. An Unrealistic Definition of Success

Feelings of failure often flood us when our idea of what success is doesn’t match our children’s idea of success.

I constantly feel like a failure at dinnertime. I try my hardest to provide my kids with good, balanced, nutritious food, but to be honest with you, meal times are a huge struggle. And for some reason, my brain stamps a big success sign over an empty plate. But the truth is, many nights my 4-year-old is too tired to eat all her food. For her, eating all her protein and a few peas might look pretty darn successful.

And when I really think about it, defining my success or failure as a mom on a clean plate is a pretty silly idea. It also places a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of a wee 4-year-old too. That is not her burden to bear.

Although we are raising children, we need to remember that we are also raising tiny humans who will be able to create their own definition of success.

All I really need to do at the end of dinner, when I’m looking at half-eaten food, is ask one simple question.

Do I love my kids? If the answer is yes, that’s all I need. And that’s all that they need.

3. Falsely High Expectations of Ourselves

Sometimes we just need to lay this imaginary yardstick down and forget about it. Because it makes us weary. The yardstick expects far too much from us. We expect too much of ourselves.

My first taste of failure as a parent came in the form of breastfeeding issues with my first child. I couldn’t breastfeed her. I have never felt so much failure in my life. In this attempt to succeed at this first “measure-up” as a new mom, I got very sick, both physically and mentally. And it wasn’t until I set down that yardstick, and consented to try bottle feeding, that I finally bonded with my baby.

I desperately want to go back in time and visit myself as a brand new mom, and whisper in her ear, “Do you love her? That’s all she needs.”

Feelings of failure are inevitable as we nurture our kids into the world. I think I’ll always feel it, to some extent. But I’m refusing to get bogged down in the muck of those feelings anymore. I’m laying down all the yardsticks and following my heart.

Do I love them? That’s all they need.

A warm welcome and a big thanks to Emma Scheib of Simple Slow & Lovely for this beautiful post!