A Nourished Motherhood = A Nurtured Childhood

erradicating the hot mess mother narrative and fast paced childhood

I unsubscribed to the “hot mess mother” narrative long before I ever became a Mother.

I romanticised Motherhood since infanthood. Cradling baby dolls, dressing them, nurturing them and playing ‘pretend’ for something I knew one day would be so, SO real for me.

As I grew I knew I would become a young Mother. And when parenthood came knocking I only ever chose to see Mothering my children the way I chose to see all aspects of living a fruitful existence - with reverence, magic and simplicity in seeing it for what it is; miraculous and joyful.

Now this is NOT to say that I do not find mothering challenging at times. or that I have not gone through seasons of motherhood that have felt hard. However the awareness that cradles my inner landscape even in times of hardship or nervous system deregulation is constantly pulsing within the core of my being, reminding me of the miracle of life, the sacredness of motherhood, and the absolute beauty of life’s many seasons/ebb and flows within those seasons. Those pulsing realisations that I have nurtured and cradled within my mind and soul means that I have been able to recognise hard days of mothering for what it is — simply a moment in time.
It allows me to centre quickly, flip my perspective (usually pretty quickly) on the current situation, allow myself to FEEL the heaviness or the weight of a certain day or season, and move forward KNOWING that this is right where I am meant to be. Knowing that my children chose me, and knowing that life is happening FOR me not TO me.

Now you might be wondering what the ‘hot mess motherhood’ entails and to me it revolves around this image of a mother so in anguish with her current season of life that she is constantly wearing the typical messy bun and never gets out of sweatpants (this is a result of not taking proper care for herself), relying on coffee on and drinking it on an empty stomach, uses wine as her escape mechanism, resents her husband and her life, does not prioritize her own nourishment and falls victim to the experience of raising children. (general overview… you get the picture).

I do not believe that women or mothers are to be blamed for this version of motherhood that they have latched onto — it has become a story that has been intricately curated over time made by a society that profits deeply from a mother rooted in disconnection from herself, her family, and her wellbeing.

As well as this, there is of course something to be said for the lack of village mentality and mothering generally speaking that comes from our society on a whole as well. We’re mothering in a world that does not hold the mother/baby dyad in reverence AND they have done a very good job at creating a world where mothers so often HAVE TO be separated from their babies to return to work, have little ‘village’ support, have husbands or partners that are so often out of tune/out of touch with their roles in supporting the mother too.

We are not victims to motherhood but I can totally appreciate that existing in the modern world as a mother can be challenging for many.

BUT the other narrative of motherhood that I swore I would not subscribe too when I became a mother was the “victimhood” motherhood.

Curating a nourished mothering experience goes hand in hand with curating a slow, intentional and nurtured childhood. The two go hand in hand. Because if we can slow down and create family rhythms, choose to be more present and find ways to get outside and be in nature with our kids, learn how to properly nourish our bodies as mothers and CHOOSE to prioritise nourishing not only children but ourselves too - then we are instantly creating a symbiotic experience of their childhood and our motherhood.

By slowly building up a stronger foundation within our mothering we are simultaneously creating more space for us to nurture our children’s childhood experience.

It should also be noted that slowing down is an art, particular within the realm of children growing up. In such a fast paced environment the modern world has diagnosed us with, it is hard for so many of us to even recognise how truly fastened and express like our lives have gotten. The epidemic of fast paced childhood is truly running rampant more than ever before. Parents of today have more appointments, recreational sport commitment, tutoring, and social activities running for their kids than they ever did within their own childhood. It continues to escalate - this crazy evolution of constantly doing more - and it is wearing down our souls and our children’s capacity to simply be children.

We are inundating them with social structures outside of their safe space (their home) that they are quickly learning that there is no space for their curiosity to thrive. Their slow nature to observe becomes banished and replaced with, “We’re late!”, or “Get in the car!”, or “You don’t have time to play/finish observing that dragonfly/read/be with mama/eat, we have to go NOW”.

And the crazy thing is; is that largely, so many do not make the connection that WE are the ones causing the stress load, the dysregulation of both parent and child, the resentment from exhaustion, the under nourished body, the resistant child worn out from doing doing doing, and overall, the hot mess mother narrative is crafted and fed due to this type of unintentional living dynamic of raising children.

What would it look like to re condition our minds as mothers - as human beings really, and learn to slow down, recognize we are not in a rush, and savour our babies growth.

My experience of Motherhood has been intuitively led. I have walked the path of unconventional living from choosing to have autonomous pregnancies outside of any medical help, to free birthing my babies, to co sleeping (so radical of me I know 😆 ), to raising my boys in nature, choosing to slow down, refusing to enter them into any schooling systems EVER, building a family centred lifestyle AROUND my children and to crafting all our foods from home from scratch (to name a few small things).

I have birthed my experience of motherhood from the foundation that my mothering is a CHOICE, that I get to decide the trajectory of me and my childrens existence, that mothering is a fruitful blessing, and that the more children I have to nurture, the better my experience gets. And from this I can see the positive impact it has had on my mental health to the way I show up in the world and for myself and my kids every single day.

I had to unlearn a lot, uncover truths, shut out the noise of everyone else, remember my innate power, and consciously choose to step into who I was MEANT to be, who my children came here for ME to be; but the reward of an unhurried, joyful life alongside my children far exceeds any of the work I pursued to create this simple reality for myself.

I create these articles in hopes of inspiring any mother in their journey within motherhood - I see you and I hear you, Mothering asks for every single part of us to be laid out on the table and intricately looked at and sieved through. It requires us at times to get uncomfortable and to sit with the discomfort. It asks us to show up in our authenticity and our wildness, in our humanness - so that we can lead the way to raising little beings who are not afraid of holding who they are up and shining brightly.

And if we could begin by embracing our roles as mothers instead of fearing or resenting them, by recognising this is what we were placed on earth to do, and that we are not inherently in any sort of rush, our children have TIME to grow up.. I think we would all start the process of having a more fulfilling, expansive, and joyful experience of raising our babies and being their mama. 🤍