The Rise Of The Good Enough Mother

The perfect mother stereotype is an unrealistic expectation that pressures women from all sides. Societal expectations combined with the immense mental load and default parenting mean that women are bound to be stressed.

We’ve covered the importance of embracing imperfect parenting before. Now, let’s go deeper into what would happen if we shift the narrative to “good enough mothering” and let go of the perfect mother myth?

Letting Go of the Myth of the “Perfect Mother”

As part of the Raised Good Summit, Tracey Gillet interviewed Dr. Sophie Brock, a sociologist of motherhood studies and host of The Good Enough Mother podcast. The concepts discussed were relatable and freeing, with mental strategies to help you stay out of the loop of the perfect mother myth and manage the mental load. In this interview, Dr. Brock examines how motherhood affects women from all perspectives. 

Mothers are endlessly needed and have numerous ongoing and regular demands on their time and energy. In a culture of the perfect mother myth, it’s hard to shift our narrative, stick to our own path, and quiet the noise of societal expectations. 

Motherhood is meant to be done together and supported by others, but in today’s culture, mothers are alone, which can lead to mental health struggles, overwhelm, and burnout. 

You can lose yourself in being a selfless mother, loving another. It’s imperative to women’s wellbeing to release the pressure to be perfect and embrace good enough mothering.

The Mental Load Of Motherhood 

Mental load has several different definitions, and all of these apply to how it affects mothers. Here is Dr. Brock’s breakdown of the various types of mental load that mothers carry and how they play out in our lives. 

• Mental load: All the things running through our heads, including organization, practical tasks, processes, and task lists. 
• Maternal thinking: The work that mothers do, which is the nurturance, training, and socialization of our children. 
• Emotional labor: The emotional work we carry out in mothering. Making sure the kids are comfortable, safe, and their needs are attended to. 
• Intellectual labor: Philosophical and ethical decisions, and the anticipation of when they will have needs like shoes and clothes. Organizing activities.
• Domestic load: Making sure the children have clean clothes, food to eat, a clean home, and knowing where their belongings are.

In our culture, the mother is the default mental load carrier, and anyone else taking it on is “helping.” While any primary caregiver might carry the burden of the mental load, the external expectations of women tend to put more pressure solely on them. 

Carrying the mental load makes it very hard to turn off, wind down, or relax. Similar to having too many tabs open on a computer, it’s impossible to consider everything at once.

Mothers’ mental load is in addition to their careers, personal lives, friendships, family relationships, exercise, and themselves. It’s exhausting just reading about it!

Moms And Multitasking

Do mothers have the innate ability to multitask? We keep our kids’ schedules in our heads, work, answer the school when they call, know where the mustard is, all while we are working our regular jobs.

All the things, all at once!

Either women are just amazing multitaskers, or they are well-practiced task switchers as a means of family survival. 

The studies show that women are not more gifted “multitaskers.” Multitasking isn’t something anyone can do. In reality, it’s simply switching quickly between tasks, a quick change of focus. 

When it comes to “multitasking” and mental load, the more you do it, the better you get at it, just like anything else. It takes practice to switch tasks quickly and manage the responsibilities of multiple people. 

Constantly having to keep all the “tabs” of motherhood open and switching tasks can wear a caregiver out. It’s no wonder mothers are stressed!

The Perfect Mother Myth

There is pressure on women to attain the ability to be perfect mothers. To carry all of the responsibility of parenting effortlessly, and carry all of the blame if anything is out of line with the perfect myth. If a mom needs “help,” that’s yet one more thing they must organize themselves. They must recognize the need, ask for help, and reorganize their lives all so they can be better mothers. 

Consider the societal markers of being seen as a good mom, and then compare them to what is seen as a marker of being a good dad. Moms tend to do all the behind-the-scenes work that no one sees, but when a dad takes his kids to the park for an hour on the weekend, they get a gold star.

The Perfect Mother Stereotype

Let’s take a look at the stereotype and expectations of the mythological perfect mother, and reflect on how unattainable it is.

According to unwritten societal rules, a perfect mother is assumed to have wanted to become a mother, and will have become a mother in a perfect age range. Not too young and irresponsible, or too old and geriatric.

Of course, a perfect mother has a perfect child… a “good baby,” as they say (this saying always perplexed me: If my babies cry, which they all did, are they “bad” babies?). She also had a perfect birth, and mothering comes naturally or instinctively to her, and she loves every moment of mothering!

She fell in love with her baby quickly and easily, and feeds the baby with zero issues. She’s fulfilled, happy, and content, and is never angry or apathetic, or bored. A perfect mother is patient, ever present, ever available and at the ready to be a caretaker 24 hours a day with a happy heart. 

The reality is that the perfect mother myth is fictional; no one can do it all. There is a cost to trying to attain that, in the emotional suffocation of women and the hours lost in unbalanced labor. Recognizing the ridiculous expectations put on mothers can be incredibly liberating!

The Function Of Maternal Ambivalence

Ambivalent: having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone.

Can we feel ambivalent about motherhood sometimes and still be good mothers? Must every moment be perfect and every difficulty hidden or handled perfectly? Can we trip up, hate a moment, loathe an aspect of mothering, yet still love our children?

The truth is that you can love your children and hate motherhood in the same moment. A mom can be ready for a break, but miss their kids when they are on said break.

Let’s normalize motherhood ambivalence. We might love some parts of mothering, and dread others. 

In fact, it’s helpful for children’s development for moms to have some ambivalence. Children need to self-differentiate and become their own beings, and they can’t do that if we don’t have a complexity of feelings about our role of motherhood. Striving for perfection as a mother puts stress on a child, and it is unhealthy for a child to feel they are the only sense of identity their mother has.

Ambivalence is critical for self-identity, so we don’t lose ourselves in one particular role. Lives are varied and diverse, they have ups and downs, wins and losses. It’s important for mothers to embrace both, and model that for their children.

As my kids have grown up, I sometimes even tell them the parts of mothering that I dislike. For example, making them go to school when they don’t want to is my most loathed mothering responsibility, and I let them know that I don’t want to! 

The Good Enough Mother

Good enough mothering is better than “perfect” mothering in so many ways. It shows our children that we are people, not just caretaking robots, and allows them to be imperfect as well. It allows us to choose our priorities and decide, on a personal level, what is best for our families in a very customized way. 

All people and families are different, and the caretaking roles should also vary from family to family. There is no perfect or one way to make a family work well; it’s a completely individualized experience. 

Creating an individual version of motherhood is liberating, especially for single mothers or mothers with four or more children, according to Brock. I hold out hope that what my children gain from having multiple siblings, or me being happy as a single mother, is enough to make up for my imperfect parenting.

Forget Perfect: Embrace Individuality

Instead of wondering how you can fulfill the perfect mother myth, create a motherhood that is solely your own. Narrow down your priorities and decide what is most important, while quieting the outside noise of societal expectations.

Recognize that you can do anything, but you can’t do everything. This is a universal fact! No mother can live up to the perfect mother myth. Commit to your own priorities and stop perpetuating or internalizing the idea of perfection.

Being honest about the mixed feelings and your true experience of raising children can be a catalyst for appreciating the true joy and growth that motherhood can bring. No inner growth comes easily, and it certainly isn’t always perfect or pretty. Just like giving birth, motherhood is a mixed bag of intense beauty, pain, difficulty, and joy. 

Good enough mothering is what our children need to develop into whole, thriving human beings. Let them learn from your example that being imperfect and being human is allowed. Striving to be a perfect mother isn’t serving the best interest of yourself, your child, or your family. Trying to model perfection is setting your child up for failure. 

As you let go of the perfect mother myth, have compassion and kindness for yourself. Give yourself grace. Take time for yourself and accept those feelings of mom guilt it may bring up. Let yourself be dissatisfied with certain aspects of motherhood, and know that you’re still a good mother who loves your children. 

Memories and life lessons aren’t made with perfect moments, so all we need is a shift in mindset. Being good enough is exactly perfect.