There is a vicious circle in mothering literature in which negative thoughts related to being a mother are considered outside of normal behavior — you know, standard myths of motherhood. If you try to figure out when it’s okay to be dissatisfied with being a mother or how much sluggishness is normal, the answer is never and none.
I am here to tell you that it’s okay to have the full range of emotions and reactions throughout your entire mothering experience. You will love, hate, cherish, and even regret motherhood sometimes.
To think we may only talk about the good stuff leaves out the richness and fullness of the experience. It is also an unfair burden to put on a mother, to expect her to stuff down the not-so-picture-perfect moments, hours, or days or to assume that the pictures we see on social media reflect the full truth of the experience.
Code #1: You immediately fall in love with your baby, and you have only blissful love from the moment you hold them. If you are overwhelmed with intense feelings of anxiety or sadness after your child’s birth, there is something wrong with you.
How did it come to be that a woman is expected to have this specific experience, and if she doesn’t, she has failed? Birthing a baby is work. It is powerful and intense work. Given the intensity of the experience and the uniqueness of every birth, can we show some grace?
Maybe your labor was so intense for you that feeling anything beyond the exhaustion or even trauma for some time was all you could do. Maybe the overall elation of the experience has you tuning into yourself and the feelings you are having. Or maybe for no particular reason, you just don’t have that moment.
Millions, if not billions, of other moms have had that same experience, and everything turned out just fine. That self-inflicted pressure or judgment is self-defeating and even violent to yourself.
Rewrite the Code: A mother’s first experience of holding her baby is a sacred event, however it happens and whatever feelings arise from it. You have the experience you need to have for the life you are living.
Code #2: Always put the needs of your children first, and you will be a good mother, and your children will turn out fine. Your needs come after everyone else’s now, including those of your spouse or partner, because your child is your top source of ongoing joy and fulfillment from here on out.
Being a mama bear protecting her cubs is a powerful image. Come anywhere near them, and you will be sorry! But we seem to exclude the pictures that make up the bulk of the day in the life of a mama bear and her cubs — sleeping when and where she wants, eating when she is hungry, and letting her cubs fall down and learn. Sometimes, a child’s needs should come first. But mom is a human being who has equally important needs. Let’s learn to be honest and distinguish between cultural messaging that dictates servitude and all-consuming mindsets over creating space for quality time with your children and with yourself.
To take it a step further, I aspire to the adage, “If mama isn’t happy, nobody is happy.” Your nourishment, self-care, sense of well-being, and affirmation lead to a person who has the energy and desire to care for her family.
Many of us come from families where our mothers’ and grandmothers’ needs were not considered or honored, and their labor was exploited. The language that asked women what they felt and needed was not spoken in our mothers’ and grandmothers’ day. And because this emotional language is missing, our mothers and grandmothers did not learn how to speak to it, which is why I think this is possibly the worst of the myths of motherhood. They did not know how to ask themselves what they felt and needed or how to share their trauma. And they did not know how to teach their daughters how to honor their feelings and needs.
Rewrite the Code: The more a mother sees her well-being and that of her children as the same, the healthier and stronger all the people who make up the family will be.
Code #3: Don’t worry about maintaining your own identity. You have a new one that really matters — being a mother. Being a mother is your primary way to feel worth as a human.
Phew, this is a big one! How do we encompass this transformative experience of becoming a mother and not overidentify with it? It takes claiming, appreciating, and understanding who you are outside of motherhood first and then adding this element into the mix. It doesn’t make you any more whole or matter any more than you did before you had a child.
Having a mom who expected that she would be perpetually affirmed by her children and having a happy childhood are not the same thing. It’s like treating children as though they are antidepressants. It puts impossible pressure on the relationship between child and parent and imposes on moms yet another way to be disappointed in themselves.
Rewrite the Code: Motherhood is something I incorporate into my wholeness and it becomes an additional facet of my identity.
Caring for our children is a priority, but so is caring for mom. I hope that by naming the most pervasive codes operating in our culture and offering ways for you to identify them personally as they manifest in your life, your awareness of how they have impacted you is growing.
This is an interactive process, and you will continue to peel away the many layers of these myths of motherhood (or codes), like paint on a wall, that have accumulated year after year, generation after generation, of families, cultures, and systems. As you identify the codes within each layer, your awareness will expand and will lead to more self-awareness and more healing. With each new awareness, a facet of your prism comes online and becomes available for light to come through.
You become brighter and more accessible, and while you may be shy at first to be this exposed, you will start to embrace it. And that is an awesome sight to behold!
— Dr. Gertrude Lyons is the author of Rewrite the Mother Code and is a leading coach and educator in women’s leadership development, parenting, and relationship satisfaction. As the founder of Rewrite the Mother Code, LLC, she inspires women to take control of their own personal transformations and has spent the last 27 years empowering individuals, couples, parents, and families to realize meaningful, successful lives. Dr. Lyons has a Masters degree in coaching and a Whole Brain Living certified coach through Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. Lyons received her B.B.A. in Finance and Accounting from St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, her M.A. in Psychology from Antioch University McGregor School and her Ed.D and M.A. in Transformational Leadership and Coaching at the Wright Graduate University. She is a noted media and podcast guest, and the host of the popular podcast, Rewrite the Mother Code. A TEDx speaker, Dr. Lyons has spoken at Google and other leading organizations and has been featured in The Guardian, Thrive Global, Business Insider, US and The Mom Feed.
