The Many Faces of Motherhood

There is no single story that captures what it means to be a mother—or to have one.

For some, today brings warmth. A sense of being held. A memory of soft hands, open arms, and words that made the world feel safe.

For others, it brings grief.

For a mother who is no longer here.

For a child not yet born.

For a version of motherhood hoped for but never lived.

And for many, it brings something more complicated.

Because motherhood is rarely simple.

It can be nurturing and nourishing—
And it can also be depleting, confusing, even wounding.

It can be a source of fierce love and identity—
Or a relationship fraught with guilt, distance, or unspoken pain.

Some carry the weight of doing it all alone.
Some carry the weight of never having felt mothered themselves.

Some are trying to become mothers.
Others are trying to unlearn what they thought it meant to be one.

Motherhood can live in longing just as much as in presence.

It can live in the ache of not knowing how to feel about the woman who raised you.

It can live in the decision not to become a mother, and what that choice costs in a world that doesn’t always understand.

It can live in resilience—
In showing up differently for your own children.
In mothering yourself.
In healing the parts of you that never got what they needed.

It’s easy to idealize motherhood.
To reduce it to flowers, cards, and breakfast in bed.
To wrap it in ribbons and gratitude and push aside anything that doesn’t fit.

But real motherhood—like all relationships—is textured.

It’s joy, and exhaustion.
Pride, and fear.
Selflessness, and sometimes, self-forgetting.

It’s devotion laced with doubt.
The ache of love stretching you beyond what you thought you could give.
The quiet disappearance of parts of yourself no one else seems to notice.

It’s holding a baby and wondering who you are now.
It’s watching your child walk away and hoping you’ve done enough.
It’s doing the best you can with what you had—even if what you had wasn’t much.

And for adult children, it’s looking back and trying to make sense of it all.

The closeness. The hurt. The moments that shaped you, even when you didn’t know they were doing so.

If your relationship with your mother is loving and strong—let yourself feel it. Let yourself celebrate it.

If it’s distant, strained, or painful—let yourself grieve what wasn’t. What still isn’t.

If you’re a mother doing your best while doubting if it’s enough—pause and breathe. You’re carrying more than anyone sees.

And if you’ve lost your mother, or a child, or the dream of motherhood—your grief belongs here too.

Motherhood is not one story.
It’s a thousand small stories, layered and interwoven.
And each deserves to be named.

So today, wherever you find yourself in this vast, complicated landscape—

May you feel seen.

May you feel permission to hold joy and sorrow in the same breath.

May you find softness where there was hardness.

And if needed, may you begin the quiet work of reparenting the parts of you still waiting to be held.

If this post resonates with you, share it with someone who may need to hear it today.

Or simply take a moment to pause, breathe, and honour the complexity of the role—yours, or your mother’s, or both.

You're not alone in how you feel. And your story, however layered, matters.