Could your quest to be the perfect mother, the good mother, actually be draining your energy? You might be caught in the trap of trying to live up to the rules of what it means to be a good mother and pushing yourself further than you have to give because of it.

I see this a lot in tired burnout, depleted mothers – the mums I work with and support in clinic. Often, this striving is, at least in part, contributing to their sense of depletion and exhaustion both mentally and physically.

In fact, this was a major barrier for me personally too in the early months and years of my own motherhood journey, when I was suffering from postnatal depletion. I had to do a lot of work around this idea of the perfect mother myth to overcome my own depletion and protect my energy.

Disclaimer:

The information provided in this blog is for your personal or other non-commercial, educational purposes. It should not be considered as medical or professional advice. We recommend you consult with a GP or other healthcare professional before taking or omitting to take any action based on this blog. While the author uses best endeavours to provide accurate and true content, the author makes no guarantees or promises and assumes no liability regarding the accuracy, reliability or completeness of the information presented. The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this blog are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this blog is done at your own risk.

The perfect mother myth

The perfect mother myth refers to the cultural and social beliefs that are held around what it means to be a good or perfect mother. It dictates the way that mothers should act in order to be deemed good mothers and it often involves rules or expectations that are fairly unrealistic and unattainable.

This is really why we consider it to be a myth because no human can live up to these expectations, especially since a lot of the time they contradict one another.

They ask more of any person than one human can do and therefore leave us feeling like we’ve failed or we’re not good enough.

It makes us push ourselves more and harder and work more and give more than we have to give, and hence why it ends up draining our energy.

In books and in research, the perfect mother myth is also referred to as intensive mothering ideology, idealised motherhood, or the super mum myth.

I’ve been fortunate to learn a lot of what I know about this topic from the wonderful Dr. Sophie Brock while I was completing her Motherhood Studies practitioner certification, and it’s been really useful for me to learn as a practitioner working with tired mum because I’m able to see the layers beyond just the physical, beyond just the broken sleep.

There’s so much more to it than most people see. Below the surface, there are all kinds of physical and emotional causes of maternal exhaustion. And if we dig even deeper, there are things like the perfect mother myth driving our choices, actions, and behaviours that lead us here in the first place.

At the end of this blog, I will cover more about how we can start to unpick and unravel and overcome this perfect mother myth, what Dr Sophie Brock calls ‘detoxing from the perfect mother myth.’

5 ways being a ‘perfect’ mother is draining your energy

1. It pushes you to over extend yourself

Striving to be a perfect mother often means we have to push ourselves to do more and be more than we have to give.

We might already be stretched thin in our mothering work, facing broken sleep, juggling work and motherhood, wrangling multiple children, and feeling overworked, but these unrealistic expectations we’re trying to meet force us beyond our capacity and we overextend ourselves, leading to exhaustion.

2. Promotes guilt and shame

Inherent in the very premise of perfect motherhood is black-and-white thinking that classifies us as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – you’re either perfect or you’ve failed. When we feel like we’re not measuring up, we usually feel guilty and ashamed.

These are depleting and lethargic emotions that can weigh us down, make us feel heavy and add to our sense of depletion.

3. It makes it hard for us to ask for and accept help

Wrapped up in the belief of perfect mothering is the idea that we should be able to do it all ourselves without any help. For many of us, needing, asking for, or accepting help is synonymous with failing or falling short of our goal of effortlessly managing the mother load without trouble or complaint.

Not letting others in to help you means you’re carrying a heavy weight on your own, draining your energy and exhausting you.

4. It is stressful, mentally and physically

Because the ideals of perfect mothering are usually unattainable and impossible to live up to, this understandably can be quite psychologically stressful. Even stress of a psychological nature has physical consequences, and if this is ongoing, i.e. chronic, it can deplete us of essential nutrients, disrupt hormone balance, and dysregulate our nervous system, causing or worsening exhaustion.

5. It makes us devalue rest

This goes hand in hand with overextending ourselves (#1) and the guilt & shame we feel (#2). Resting is so difficult for so many of us because we don’t view it as productive, we’re too busy to stop and slow down, and we are overcome with guilt when we attempt to rest instead of doing other more classically ‘productive’ tasks (e.g. chores or work).

So much of this stems from our beliefs about what it means to be a ‘good’ mother and our striving for perfection. The good mother is always busy and always taking care of everything, she’s not lazy and she doesn’t need a break.

But of course, a lack of rest is a one-way ticket to burnout

Detoxing from the perfect mother myth

As I mentioned above, ‘detoxing’ from the perfect mother myth is a term I borrow from Dr. Sophie Brock and her work. 

There are four things I recommend doing if you want to start on the journey of doing this work:

1. Journal what a ‘perfect mother’ looks like to you
2. Get clear on your own mothering values
3. Start listening out for and examining the ‘shoulds’
4. Practice self-compassion

1. Journal exercise: who is the ‘perfect mother’?

The first thing I recommend doing is a reflective exercise for you to think about what a perfect mother looks like to you. We all have our own picture of what a perfect mother is – there are some universal beliefs from the broader culture, but it will also be influenced by our personal perspective, our childhood, our family of origin, our life experiences, our exposure to certain messages in the media, as well by our current family and partnership dynamics.

Typically, the perfect mother looks like: she is self-sacrificing, selfless, always giving to those in her family, and always putting others first. She usually makes food from scratch, her kids are always well behaved (because, you know, she’s a good mother!). She’s also independent, especially financially, but she never is distracted from the family and the kids (contradiction, anyone?)

She takes care of her own needs but also puts everyone else’s first. She’s healthy, well-kept and put together, never angry, and always regulated. She doesn’t get bored with motherhood and loves being with her children all the time. You can see how these beliefs quickly form a very idealized version of motherhood.

Write down what yours looks like. It might look really similar to this with a few key differences or a few extra details. Do this exercise so you know what to look out for playing out in your life in real-time.

2. Get clear on your mothering values

The next thing is to get clear on your own values. What do you value? What’s important to you as a woman, as a mother, as a parent, and as the family unit?

When you’re clear on your values, it’s easier to determine what is important to you versus what is an external belief from the culture that you have inherited but which you might not necessarily want to continue holding onto.

3. Start listening for and examining the ‘shoulds’

Start to listen for when that little voice inside your head uses the word ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’.

For example, a good mother shouldn’t let her child have so much screen time. Or a good mother should be more attentive and more engaged

Once you begin to notice this, you can begin to unravel whether the should is related to you stepping out of alignment with your values or whether it’s because you have deviated from the rules of good mothering. Then, we can sit with this question and try to understand which one it is.

If it’s our own values, that’s useful information and it can help you to step back into alignment with them and act differently moving forward. But, if it’s because you’ve deviated from the rules of good motherhood, you can decide if it’s something important to you and your family. Maybe yes, maybe no. And if not, you can start to let go of the rules that don’t belong to you.

4. Practice self-compassion

This unraveling of the perfect mother myth is not easy and not quick. It won’t happen overnight. It’s a constant journey, not a destination we reach and then we’re done with it forever.

As things pop up along your motherhood journey, you’ll be able to return back to these steps and reflect each time.

Along the way, we need to practice self-compassion and be very kind to ourselves because this is inner work that can get raw and can make us feel vulnerable. Guilt and shame often accompany the ‘shoulds’, so practice extending the same kind of compassion and kindness to yourself that I know you’re extending to your own children all the time because you’re navigating uncharted territory and all kinds of old wounds and trauma can emerge along the way.

Final note

We explored five ways in which trying to be the perfect mother or the good mother might be draining your energy and a few little practical ways that we can start to unravel the perfect mother myth in our lives to protect our energy and find more freedom to mother on our own terms.

Disclaimer:

The information provided in this blog is for your personal or other non-commercial, educational purposes. It should not be considered as medical or professional advice. We recommend you consult with a GP or other healthcare professional before taking or omitting to take any action based on this blog. While the author uses best endeavours to provide accurate and true content, the author makes no guarantees or promises and assumes no liability regarding the accuracy, reliability or completeness of the information presented. The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this blog are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this blog is done at your own risk.