Confession: I Googled “Can You Quit Being a Mom?”

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It was 2:17 a.m.

My toddler had just thrown up on the comforter I literally washed that morning.

My hair was matted with applesauce from a tantrum earlier.

My phone was glowing in the dark as I searched something I never imagined typing:

“Can you quit being a mom?”

There it was — raw, shameful, and more honest than I’d ever dared to be out loud.

Not because I don’t love my child with every cell of my being. I do. Fiercely. Wildly.

But in that moment, I felt like I was drowning in the weight of being everything for someone else while feeling like nothing for myself.

And I know I’m not the only one.

Motherhood has this way of stretching us in every direction… into love so big it feels holy, and into exhaustion so deep it feels dangerous.

No one tells you how lonely it can feel being someone’s everything.

But here’s the truth I want to wrap around you like a warm blanket: feeling that way doesn’t make you a bad mom. It makes you a human one.

So this post isn’t about quitting.

It’s about something braver — pausing.
Breathing.
Asking for softness.
Letting the weight fall off your shoulders for just a moment so you can remember who you are underneath all the giving.

It’s about finding tiny pockets of light in the chaos.

Maybe it’s a moment on the porch while your child naps, painting your feelings with watercolors instead of words.
Maybe it’s putting on music while you fold laundry and letting yourself dance, just a little.
Maybe it’s whispering, “I matter, too,” even if no one else hears it but you.

You don’t need to run away from motherhood to feel whole again.
But you do have permission to step out of the storm, even for a minute, and be held by your own gentleness, by your art, by the memory that you’re more than just “mom.”

And if today was one of the hard ones?

I see you. I’m with you. And no, you’re not broken. You’re just beautifully, breathtakingly tired.

Let’s make space for that.