The Most Difficult Part of Being a Mother

Posted on by The Heart Advocate in Coping + Healing

As a new mother, I am often asked, “how do you like being a mother?” I think that is a strange question to ask someone. If I said, “I hate it” everyone would think I was the worst woman in the world, right? Instead of being a sarcastic, I always give the same responses,

“I love it!”

“It is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“It is a challenge, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

The other day, someone asked me a question that truly made me think about my motherhood journey; a question that I feel was the most difficult to answer. “What is the most difficult part of being a mother?” I stopped, thought about it, and there were so many things that came to mind like:

  • Teaching my daughter to latch
  • Pumping late at night so my breasts  don’t become engorged
  • Getting my daughter to fall asleep without nursing
  • Praying that she does not bite my nipples
  • Vaccinations
  • Waking up on the hour in the middle of the night to breastfeed
  • Always being tired
  • The selflessness
  • Repeating myself over-and-over again
  • patience overall

Although, these things are all challenging aspects of motherhood, they are not the most difficult part. The most challenging part of being a mother, and I know most mothers would agree is learning to let go!

Letting go of your children, allowing them to explore, being away from them, being unable to protect them from the world, this is our challenge because from the moment they are born, you are slowly letting them go, and it happens almost immediately.

  • Allowing your child cry themselves to sleep so that they are not sleeping in your bed until they are 5, is letting them go.
  • When they crawl, walk, run, climb stairs, or when they try to get off the couch and the bed on their own, this is a part of letting them go, and it hurts. 

As a mother, we are forced to watch our children grow; every day they are getting older, and it never stops. Children grow up and that is the most difficult part about being a mother. You have to let them go, be, learn, see, and experience life. Every parent wants and misses when their child needed them for everything. 

It’s so hard for me to wrap my head around her first day of Kindergarten; her first sleepover, first adult tooth, first relationship, her first kiss, her first breakup; her graduation, moving away from home, getting acceptance into college, when she gets married, her first child…

From the day a child is born, you are letting them go, and its the hardest thing that I have ever done.

Published by The Heart Advocate

Ta'lor L. Pinkston created The Heart Advocate to help individuals choose self-love as a coping skill for mental health and healing. The Heart Advocate facilitates workshops, provides virtual one-on-one Self-love Therapy sessions and programs, and manages Healing Over Everything (H.O.E.), a support group and virtual safe-space for anyone 18+. The Heart Advocate takes self-love with her every where she goes by speaking across Pittsburgh, PA and on social media about defying beauty standards, self-hate, fear, self-doubt, and shame. The Heart Advocate seeks to eliminate the stigma around therapy and mental health, specifically for BIPOC individuals through advocacy and normalizing mental health on social media.

21 thoughts on “The Most Difficult Part of Being a Mother”

  1. Pingback: Ask a Mom w/ Ta’lor – Healthy Mama

  4. Yes!! Exactly how I feel about it all. I sometimes get teary thinking about the future, because it seems to be coming so quickly. I just have to learn to live in the now and soak it in. P. S. oh my goodness, so gorgeous!!

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  5. she is such a cute one full of character! And appreciate you sharing such an honest and open aspect of mothering … the best thing in life is ‘to let go’ of nay and everything, not just our children … it’s when we hold tight that we smother them 🙂

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    1. Thank you so much and Thank you for reading. It’s so true. I definitely don’t want to be a smother and I don’t want to be hands off either. Finding the balance is key

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  6. I stopped to read your post because I too have kiddos that seem to be growing up too fast and I’ve been sort of heart broken lately because my son will be graduating already in three years! From one mama to the next #cherisheverymoment btw your babies are PRECIOUS 😻

    Reply

  9. Your daughter is beautiful 😍 I love this post, as a young mother with a young baby it was so helpful to be able to relate to someone else on motherhood!

    Reply

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