However Mother's Day Felt Yesterday - Your Experience of Motherhood Matters

Yesterday was Mother's Day in the UK - And I don't think the commonly-used phrase: "Happy Mother's Day" is suitable for a day that encompasses so much complexity.

Instead of pushing a commercial idea that Mother's Day is always happy, joyful, celebratory, or uncomplicated, for all mothers, I would prefer this sentiment be shared:

"I hope that on Mother's Day, and every day, you and those around you honour your relationship to mothering, in all of its inevitable complexity".

This is not a new idea — but one that bears repeating every year.

Because not all Mother's Days are 'happy':

• Not all people who wish to be mothers can be.

• Not all mothers 'love every minute', for so many varied reasons.

• Not all adults have a mother who is the 'best mum in the world'.

• Many people were grieving their mothers yesterday - some grieving a mother who has died, others grieving a mother who is still alive.

• Not all mothers had partners who celebrated them yesterday - some of these mothers are single, and some have a partner who just doesn't (can't? won't?) step up.

• Not all mothers have a child who can make a card, or write out a card, or who can say 'I love you'.

• Not all mothers have children who can (or will) sit still, cooperatively and calmly, through a family meal.

• And not all mothers wanted to spend all day yesterday with their kids or their own mother — some mothers needed a well-earned break, even from their family.

• Not all mothers are feeling well enough physically to enjoy this day - perhaps unwell with cancer, or another acute or chronic illness.

  
  

Motherhood is far more complex than Mother's Day makes out, through its commercial, consumerist lens.

So if your relationship to motherhood feels complex - you are not alone, and you are not broken.

I want you to zoom out for a moment:

When we can zoom out, we can begin to see that the societal pressures placed on mothers -on Mother's Day and every single day - are wildly unrealistic. Within these patriarchal, misogynistic societal structures, we were never meant to 'succeed' in response to these expectations. The expectations are carefully cultivated to make us feel broken, not cut out for it, like there is something wrong with us, like it's only us that struggles in relation to motherhood.

By design, the patriarchal system is set up to make us struggle alone, suffer in silence, and feel intense shame.

And on Saturday last week, I was reminded of this in the most powerful way, particularly in relation to maternal mental health, when I went to a wonderful, moving, and deeply unshaming photography exhibition called This is Also Motherhood (photographed by Carolyn Mendelsohn and commissioned by the Maternal Mental Health Alliance). It was held in Leeds at the Photo North Festival - and the timing of it, on Mother's Day weekend, felt incredibly important.

This exhibition lifted the veil on the fantasy 'ideals' of motherhood, and let us all see some of the complex emotional reality of it - a reality that is too often hidden behind so much shame:

• Because mothers have also been traumatised by giving birth.

• Mothers also have OCD.

• Mothers also have eating disorders.

• Mothers are also neurodivergent.

• Mothers also have suicidal thoughts.

• Mothers are also in abusive relationships - and also fleeing them.

• Mothers are also queer, and navigating discrimination because of it.

• Mothers also terminate pregnancies for medical reasons.

• Mothers also experience psychosis.

• Mothers were also unbelievably sick for nearly every day of their pregnancy.

• And many mothers have a million more challenging experiences every day that are still not represented in our society's understanding of motherhood.

Many mothers were navigating all of this yesterday, on Mother's Day, and many are navigating these challenges every day of the year(s).

For all of these reasons and more - Mother's Day was probably not 'happy' in an uncomplicated, commercialised way for many of us - because we all have varied and complex relationships to mothering.

So what can we do?

We need to talk more about our REAL experiences of motherhood. This is the most powerful thing we can do to break down the systems that keep us suffering in silence and isolated in our shame.

But we also need to choose our audience wisely when we do - not all people will respond with compassion and validation when you share your vulnerable motherhood experiences - sometimes sharing our stories leads to more shame, and a critical thought that we "shouldn't have said anything"

When we want to get honest about our experience of motherhood, we need to seek out the people who will hold our story with the respect, validation and care it deserves.

Professional support like therapy can be a truly wonderful option for becoming more open about experience of motherhood - but only if you seek out a therapist who understands the difference between 'commercialised motherhood' and real motherhood, and who understands intimately how shame operates in the context of mothering. Sadly, many therapists do not understand this, and can too easily intensify shame in mothers & women.

However - compassion, acceptance, validation, and being able to clearly see the patriarchal systems that keep women trapped - are the cornerstones of the support I offer to women in my private practice. If you think I might be able to support you with your real experience of motherhood, please do reach out - it would be my honour to hear from you.

Because all of our stories of motherhood matter. And none of us are ever alone, whatever our reality or relationship to motherhood looks like.

Yesterday, and every day, I want to validate and honour your journey - through your experience of mothering, and of being mothered.

Regardless of how consumerism paints away the complexity of Mother's Day - your experience matters. Your story matters. You matter.

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I'm Dr. Jenny Turner, Clinical Psychologist, Mum, late-in-life-self-identifying AuDHD human, and founder of Mind Body Soul Psychology - a specialist, trauma-informed, private psychology service for women.

I can help you at any stage of your life journey - whether you need support to enter adulthood, navigate perimenopause, heal from trauma, finally transform your relationship to your own anxieties, shame, guilt, rage and/or overwhelm - I can support you to enrich your life & relationships.

My services are trauma-informed, non-pathologising, compassion-focussed, neuroaffirmative, and always offered through an intersectional feminist lens - most people I work with identify as a woman, but my services are trans & non-binary inclusive.

I offer online appointments to women based all over the UK, and I offer in-person appointments in Ripon, North Yorkshire - click here to find out more: www.mindbodysoulpsychology.co.uk

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