Making Over Motherhood

This week on Instagram I’ll be joining The Blue Dot Project in their Making Over Motherhood campaign designed to raise awareness for maternal mental health! The goal of this campaign is to help shed light on what motherhood really looks like, which is often different from what we have envisioned or what we see in media.

Commonly, a large source of perinatal anxiety and depression can stem from feeling like a “bad” parent. We’re up late at night, reading, scrolling, and comparing ourselves to an unobtainable (and unrealistic) ideal of motherhood or fatherhood. We assume that if we’re not loving every minute, always have a well-slept and spotless kid, and are somehow relaxing in our tidy, uncluttered living room, we are failing. Others are doing it better, more gracefully, and with ease. It’s our fault. We aren’t good enough.

This is a lie.

For every beautifully curated picture of your best friend’s sister and her baby, there are thousands of unseen moments. Moments where she’s exhausted. Moments where she’s unsure if she needs to start supplementing with formula. Moments where she’s so hungry and busy that she’s stuffing a stack of 4 Oreos in her cheek and calling it dinner.

Motherhood (and fatherhood) isn’t black and white: either you’re the picture of natural motherly perfection or a struggling mess. It’s a spectrum of gray, a kaleidoscope of different experiences. This is what Making Over Motherhood is all about- let’s showcase the beauty of real motherhood.

Throughout the week I’ll be posting quotes about motherhood from real perinatal, New Jersey moms. Each quote or story will also include a skill and free downloadable worksheet. If you have any questions on how to use the worksheets or would like to discuss them further in a counseling session, please give me a call!