Hi Reader,

A quick note with one thing I think you need to hear (as much as I need to keep saying it to myself).

You know that moment when you lost your patience over something so small you barely remembered what it was by dinner. The shoe that wouldn't go on. The voice that asked you the same question for the fourth time. The clean family room - a disaster again.

And you snapped.

Probably because you couldn't stop it fast enough

Then the rest of the day (or even longer 🙋🏻‍♀️), some quiet part of you sat with it. Replaying it. Wondering what kind of mother loses it over a shoe (again 🙋🏻‍♀️).

(If you're really wondering what kind of mother... it's literally every kind. Every mom I've ever talked to).

--

You're a good mom. You may not always feel like one.

Those are two different things, and most of us spend years acting like they're the same. They are not.

Losing your patience in a hard moment doesn't erase everything else — the bedtime stories, the inside jokes, the way you show up again and again and again even when you're exhausted, frustrated, grieving, just plain burnt out.

All it means is that you were human in a moment that asked more of you than you had to give.

I'm not saying this to let anyone (or myself) off the hook, or to tell you it doesn't matter. It does matter.

But it matters in a different way than the guilt wants you to believe. It's not proof you're failing. It's information. A signal. Something worth understanding, not just something to feel bad about. Something inside of you that is asking for a little attention (more on this later).

For today though, I'll repeat myself because I want you to really internalize it:

You're a good mom. You may not always feel like one.

And, as I often do, I'm writing this because I need to hear it. This newsletter is and always has been a pep talk to myself. More on that here, if you're curious.

Yours in repeating this until it sticks,