No matter how you do it, being a mother is not easy. Furthermore, every “form” of motherhood—working mom, biological mom, adoptive mom, stepmom—comes with its own set of challenges. TikTok user “Syd” (who posts as @eclectichomeschooling) recently posted a video highlighting the unique struggles she experiences as a stay-at-home mom. Her ideas resonated with her followers.
“I think a lot of people don’t realize that as a stay-at-home mom, whether you’re a homeschooling mom or your kids are little and you’ve been at home with them all these years, there’s no measure of success. There’s no measure of success. ,” she began.
“No one is going to say, ‘Congratulations, you got promoted; you’re the best of the best at this skill.’ None of that.
Sure, Syd continued, you may get compliments on how you raise your children, but that’s not the same thing as being able to track success.
“It feels good, it makes us happy, it makes us feel loved enough to give love, but it’s not something you can keep or write down.”
On the other hand, what can you measure? those who tend to no Talk about progress for stay-at-home moms. Is the house clean? Have you finished washing the clothes? Where’s the food? It’s hard to say “yes” to everything that ultimately needs to be done.
“When you tie your success to something you do 24 hours a day and something that’s personally relevant to you, it can be really exhausting,” she said. “For you to be the perfect parent in a measurable way, you actually need to not rest for a second. Everything in your life looks perfect, but we know that’s not true, right. Right? We know that’s not healthy for a person, so then you’re back to square one, without any kind of validation, really.
Sid is not too inferior. She knows that she is lovely, a good mother, a good partner and a good friend. She even jokingly admitted that part of this melancholy “rant” has to do with PMS. but…
“We will have eight years of unmeasurable [my success as a person],” she sighed. “I think it’s something that no one really talks about, or we don’t really talk about it with each other. Your partner goes to work: they get a promotion, they get a raise, they finish their work for the day, they… .will say “Okay, I made it. “but [workload] It’s always constant and there’s no measure.
She has no resolution or even conclusion to her feelings: the footage is the beginning of a rant and a conversation. She believes that stay-at-home moms might spend more time on interests, such as things outside of daily life, to find a sense of progress and success, but ultimately she doesn’t know if this is the case. yes The solution to this very real problem.
“No one could explain this to me before I became a SAHM,” one commenter responded. “On my best days, it’s interesting to note how closely we are connected to corporate success. On my worst days, it’s inevitably heartbreaking.
“It’s a never-ending cycle that never completes,” agreed another. “We can never be satisfied with ‘a job well done’ because nothing is truly accomplished. Once I started focusing on my own happiness, things got better.
Others pointed out that being a mother, especially a stay-at-home mom, often means that things you do well go unnoticed, but things you fail at are magnified, not just by you but by others.
Like Syd, we don’t have the answer to this question. But we do think that talking about it among ourselves, mom to mom, can really help us vent some of our frustrations and enable us to realize that a lack of measurable, externally recognized progress doesn’t mean a lack of Value or lack thereof.
