It was the end of a long day; my kids’ soccer practices were wrapping up in the insane Texas heat (despite being almost October) and I heard a stranger say, “you did a great job handling that.” I could not believe how much I was affected by a fellow mom’s kind words to me at my son’s recent practice. He had some big feelings about things his teammates were saying about his performance. I tried to give him some space to talk and encouraged him to go back to play with his friends. I didn’t think I was that helpful to him in the moment—my other son was also with me, making it hard to fully focus. And while my son eventually went back to playing, he was quite mad at me for encouraging him to do so. But as I was packing up, the mom sitting two collapsible chairs down from me actually complimented how I navigated the situation. I can honestly say, I am not sure this has ever happened to me, but it felt amazing! When we were leaving soccer practice, I walked straighter, smiled more, and noticed I approached the next round of conflicts with my kids much more positively.
My perfectionistic tendencies certainly come with a healthy dose of people pleasing. I am prone to seek external validation but with all the much-needed dialogue around parental stress, I wonder about concrete measures we could all take to aid in maternal stress—more praise of one another.
Seeking feedback and receiving unsolicited criticism is incredibly common for parents. Parenting books, workshops, mom-blogs all point to things we could be doing more of, less of, new methods to try, “healthier” snacks to offer. It is an endless barrage of critiques. In my work as a therapist, I often contributed to the rhetoric parents face by offering suggestions to parents that had a slight critical bent—this was before kids. I am now much more empathic about what it takes to parent in this modern world. Moms are straddled with “mom-guilt” constantly worrying that we are going to negatively affect our kids’ in irreparable ways. Moms face backlash and are somehow open to judgment from the moment we meet our babies (I am talking about the breast-is-best world!). And if that was not enough, influencer culture or as Sara Peterson so brilliantly captured “momfluencer culture” has just compounded all of these issues by offering a myriad of ways moms “should” be mom-ing. All of this to say, mom’s behaviors are often scrutinized and criticized.
But the reality is that kids do not come with manuals. They are really hard. And parenting in the current cultural climate is not easy. The shift away from village living has left nuclear families to figure it out for themselves and the world we live in is fraught with difficult decisions. The questions are endless: what is the appropriate amount of screen time usage, when is social media ok, is social media ok, can the kids play in the yard without me, should I push my kid into any extracurriculars? These questions keep us up at night. So, when someone sees us in the wild, probably in the midst of some internal questioning and offers support in the form of specific positive commentary, it can be a lifeline.
Because of the content overload we are all exposed to, parents are particularly susceptible to questioning themselves. And while we as mothers could all work on being more trusting of our inherent wisdom, getting a compliment every now and again from a stranger might just give a mom at her wits end some momentary confidence that she can take with her and slowly work towards cultivating more internal trust.
The cultural discussion around parental stress has thankfully come with many astutely pointing to the need for more community. It can often feel like we are all going it alone and suffering in isolation. Then we combine these feelings with the pressures we face on social media and it is a recipe for feeling like something is wrong with us. Thankfully we are living in a time where the discrepancies about what is real and what is on social media is consistently addressed. AND yet moms still feel like we aren’t meeting some standard every now and again.
Another distinct possibility in offering a compliment to a mom is that we are slowly building communities. Having our community of moms helps us in deep and profound ways, including helping to build resilience. In the process of strengthening a sense of community we also teach our children about the importance of human connection in a world that can seem to lack it.
As I head back to the soccer field, I will absolutely keep my head on a swivel in search of the complimentary mom. I hope to connect and share the impact of her compliment. I am sure that will lead to some welcomed exchanges about how hard it all is—a great and simple reminder that we are not alone in the struggle.
The criticism and the perceived criticism are constant in the parent space. I love this, Vanessa. We often attempt to employ this with kids, why not each other?
Positivity abounds: I'll match your blogpost with one of my own!
https://thankfulpriest.com/2024/09/27/let-it-shine-soccer-edition/
So glad to have connected.