Ivana Poku I was a perfect mum before I had kids. Were you too?
You had it all planned out:
The nursery would be pinned on Pinterest.
You’d:
- have an amazing birth experience
- manage with sleepless nights ok (after all, you had them before!)
- do deal with everything MUCH better than other mums
- enjoy your cute baby so much!!
And then it was born and you sobered up faster than you could catch your breath.
I still remember that moment when I was crying at the hospital bed, half hopeless half raging: WHY did no one tell me it would feel like this??
I know me and you are not the only ones who’ve felt this way, so let’s talk about the elephant in the room:
- Why our expectations of motherhood are so wildly unrealistic.
- Why we walk in blind.
- What we can actually do about it so the next generation of mums doesn’t have to feel so blindsided.
And last but not least – what we can do to make things easier for ourselves!
(Because that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?)
Ready?
Let’s begin.
Who I Was Before I Was A Mum
Before I had our twins, I thought what probably most non parents think:
I will (would) do things much better than _________.
Or
My child will never ___________.
Or, the best one: “I would never__________.”
I still hear a little voice (ok a big voice) laugh as I type this out.
But it’s not really funny, is it?
Because it’s the exact lie so many of us were told and sold.
We didn’t choose that picture – it was handed to us, over years, through films and adverts and the careful silence of the women who came before us.
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Who I Was When I Became a Mum
Truth is, motherhood doesn’t look or feel like it does in the movies.
It’s more like grief and love happening side by side.
Most people connect grief with death, but we grieve every time we lose something.
When you become a mum, you gain something amazing – your baby. But, and this is the part many miss, you also lose the old version of you and your old life.
Whatever happens from the moment you give birth, you will never not be a mum again.
And that’s not something you can just gloss over with a smile on your face, as we often see in the movies.
That’s why feeling sad, lonely or doubtful when you become a mum are completely normal and natural feelings of a new mum. People label it as baby blues, but I call it nature doing its thing.
And when reality doesn’t match the picture we were promised, we don’t blame the picture. We blame ourselves.
An Important Thing to Add…
Now, don’t get me wrong. Becoming a mum is amazing in many ways.
The picture we’re sold is not a lie.
It’s just incomplete.
A highlight reel, as they say.
And when you’re shown an incomplete picture multiple times over the years, it starts to feel like the whole truth.
Why It Feels So Different When It’s Your Own
Here’s something nobody explains to you either – and what I realised only years after being a mum myself.
Before you have kids, you’re around other people’s children at times. Nieces, nephews, your friends’ babies… They cry, they scream, and you stay completely calm.
You think, “Why are they so stressed?” or “See, I’m actually good at this.”
So you build your whole idea of yourself as a mum on that moment. Hence the belief: “I will deal with things so much better than_______.”
But it’s not the same and it was never going to be the same.
Here’s why.
When it’s YOUR child crying, something in you switches on that never switches on for anyone else. It’s wired into you specifically for that baby, and it hits you completely differently to how it hits you with someone else’s child.
That’s why all the “by the book” advice falls apart the moment you’re actually living it. The books tell you to stay calm, hold the boundary, don’t give in. And you WANT to. But your own child’s cry doesn’t sound like noise to you, it sounds like an alarm. And it is.
So you give in, not because you’re weak, but because every part of you is built to respond to that sound and stop it.
That’s why it looks so easy when you hear other children act out, scream or cry. It’s not remotely the same as when it’s your own child doing it.
What Else Creates Unrealistic Expectations
I’ve thought about this A LOT.
And here’s what I’ve landed on:
- We’re only shown the good things: Not many mums post about the daily stress, the meltdowns, or the mental load of being a mum. And that’s not a bad thing, really. Why would anyone want to post that right when it’s happening?
- People don’t talk about the reality enough: In the movies you see new mums beaming with joy and happiness. You hear other mums talk about milestones and birthday parties, but not about how they cry behind closed doors. At most they might say “it’s hard but so worth it.” So the hard part stays vague, and the shock lands full force the second you’re deep in it.
- We’re taught motherhood is instinctive, so struggling feels like failing: If it’s meant to come “naturally,” then struggling with it must mean something’s wrong with YOU. It doesn’t. It just means nobody explained that you’re learning to be a mum every day for as long as you are a mum. Even when they’re adults, you never stop learning.
- We only ask the questions we already know to ask: Before kids, we ask about prams and nursery colours and birth plans. We don’t ask “will I still feel like myself?” because it never occurs to us that’s a question we should ask.
- The whole industry around motherhood sells a fantasy, not the truth: Adverts show easy days, smiling babies and even more smiling mums, “bounced back” bodies, or “best life yet.” Why? Because a pretty picture sells better than the truth.
Think About This For A Second
Do you know what the craziest bit is?
When you start a new job, you get an induction. Someone shows you where the kettle is, gives you a training plan, checks in on you in week one, and gives you a probation period where it’s totally normal (and expected) to still be figuring things out.
When you move to a new country, you know it’s normal to feel lost for a while, and that it will take time to settle. You don’t think you’re not failing if you still find things hard after three months.
Becoming a parent is the biggest, hardest, most identity-altering job most of us will ever do.
And yet, paradixically – you expect you should know everyting from day one and enjoy it like your life hasn’t just been turned upside down.
Crazy, isn’t it?
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What We Can Do To Change This For Future Mums
Turh is that every stage of motherhood is a season, not a life sentence. And it’s not a secret we should keep for oueselves.
Here’s what I think we can do to help the mums coming after us be more prepared:
- Tell the truth, gently but honestly: Don’t sugarcoat the situation, but also don’t tell them things like “you just wait, you will regret you ever wanted a baby.” That’s not cool and not helpful in any way. Try something like: “it’s beautiful, but it’s not all a bed of roses – especially in the early months. But it does get easier. I’m here for you whenever you need help and support.”
- Talk about the mental load out loud: Most future mums ask about birth and body changes. When you answer their questions, always mention what other things they should prepare for besides birth – and why it’s important. Not to scare them, but to arm them.
- Normalise saying “I’m struggling”: Every time one of us says it out loud, it makes another mum feel safe and gives her permission to say it too. That’s how the silence breaks.
- Start sharing the whole picture: You don’t have to overshare. But a bit of honesty online goes a long way for the mum scrolling wondering if she’s the only one feeling like she’s failing.
- Let go of the idea that struggling means failing: Every time we tell a new mum “you’re doing amazingly even when you’re struggling,” we’re rewriting the story for the next one too.
- Pass down the truth the way you wish it had been passed down to you: If your own mum never told you how hard it was, that doesn’t mean you can’t be the one who tells your daughter, your niece, your friend. Be the one who breaks the pattern.
If you’re pregnant, or newly a mum, and you’re starting to feel that gap between what you expected and what’s actually happening – I want you to have the things I wish someone had told me. I put together a free guide called 9 Things About Motherhood Most Mums Find Out Too Late, and it’s exactly that. The honest, unfiltered stuff. The stuff that would have saved me so much guilt if I’d known it sooner. You can grab it here.
Final Word
My darling, if you’re sat crying right now wondering why nobody warned you, listen to me:
You’re not the only one feeling this way. It’s been 10 years since I became a mum and I still remember that moment when the reality hit like it was yesterday.
Everyone around you softened and filtered the story for years. So you walked in holding a picture that was never real. A picture made of adverts, silence, and people too scared to tell you the truth.
So you’re not “failing” as a mum.
You’re learning something nobody prepared you for… and you’re doing it anyway. That itself shows what an AMAZING mum you are.
And the next mum, the one crying silently a year from now, convinced she’s the only one – she deserves the truth too.
Make it start with you.
If you have any questions please drop them in the comments below or email me at ivana.poku@mumsjourney.com. I read every single email. <3
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