Want to be a good mum? Learn to fail.

Motherhood design pt. 2

(Pic: me feeding all 3 triplets simultaneously and you’ll also see a hospital grade breast pump in the background)

This is for you if:

You are a high achiever

You have high expectations of yourself

You feel really uncomfortable with failure

High achiever, meet motherhood (this isn’t pretty)

Meet 15-year-old me. She’s about to sit her GCSEs and genuinely believes the propaganda her teachers have been peddling about this being the most important moment in her life. The pressure’s on. She, and most of her classmates, are expected to get As across the board.

So far, so good. She gets the As, heads off to Oxford, then into work with the belief that life is about getting As across the board.

By 37, she’s pregnant, bought a house, won industry awards and is generally scoring As all over the show. She’s a cliché, and you’re welcome to roll your eyes here, but I wanted to be honest with you.

By 38, she’s mum to premature triplets and so far away from her life of As its unrecognisable. She’s failing at everything. She is free-falling in a world she doesn’t understand and wasn’t prepared for. She’s come a long way from high-performance.

She starts to agree with that critical mum guilt voice in her head – it’s right, she should be embarrassed by this paltry effort. She’s a joke. She’s not even fit to be a mum.

In school, in our careers, there is a clearly defined path to getting good at something. Do the qualification, get the promotion. Boom, boom, boom.

Guess what?

Motherhood ain’t like that.

Newborn motherhood is more like going into battle sleep-deprived and blindfolded with the expectation you’ll easily win. Failing feels demoralising, unexpected and we feel like we’re letting our kids down, which gives mum guilt some serious traction.

I realised if I wanted to protect the things that mattered most to me, if I really wanted to score As in those things that were truly aligned with my values, I had to get radically comfortable with failing elsewhere.

We are all going to fail at some things in motherhood. The question is whether we consciously choose which things we’re willing to fail at, or let life make those decisions for us.

Every A costs an F

Last week, I asked you to think about what you actually want motherhood to look and feel like. What matters most to you? What do you want more of? If you missed it, go back and do your homework here.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: you cannot make room for the motherhood you want without pushing some things off your plate.

Designing your motherhood isn’t just about deciding what matters. It’s about deciding what doesn’t.

Every A we score in one area of motherhood costs us an F somewhere else. Because our time, energy and money are finite.

I can choose to get my A in nutrition and make home-cooked meals from scratch but it will cost me an F in the state of my kitchen.

If I want an A in looking after my mental health, I might have to take an F in volunteering to host Christmas or even a class party.

The Fs aren’t evidence that I’m a bad mother. They’re evidence that I’m making choices.

Over to you

So, right now, complete the following sentence:

I hereby give myself permission to fail at:

1

2

3

So that I have more time/money/energy for what really matters to me.

Please share these in the comments or DM me. I’d love to hear them.

A few egs from me: matching outfits, having a tidy home or car, keeping on top of parenting trends, Instagram, WhatsApp group chats, expensive extracurricular clubs

Once you get started, you’ll find there are plenty of things you are willing to get an F in.

Fifteen-year-old me would have been horrified by all those Fs.

But 43-year-old me knows something she didn’t.

Success isn’t about getting As across the board. It’s about getting As in the things that actually matter to you. And that means knowing where you’re prepared to fail. Because if you don’t actively choose where you’re willing to fail you’re going to try and do it all and inevitably find you drop some balls, possibly even where it matters the most.

Success isn’t about getting As across the board. It’s about getting As in the things that actually matter to you.

And that means knowing where you’re prepared to fail.

Because if you don’t choose your Fs, life will choose them for you.

I stared this F*** Mum Guilt movement after reaching a low point with mum guilt and realising it wasn’t just a me problem, we all need to stand up and fight it together. Subscribe for weekly ammo.