From the moment you became a mum, you were handed a story. It sounded noble. It felt right. And it has been quietly running your life ever since.
The story goes like this: when you become a mother, your life stops and you become accountable for your child.
You absorbed it from your own parents. From the culture. From every message about what a "good mum" looks like. And the reason it feels so right is that it sounds like love. Sacrifice. Devotion.
But it is not true. And the gap between that story and reality is where your exhaustion lives.
Think about what accountability actually means. It means you are responsible for an outcome. You control it. If it goes wrong, it is on you.
Now apply that to another human being. A person with their own mind, their own choices, their own life. Can you actually be accountable for that? No. You cannot.
If it were true that you are accountable for your child, absent parents would not exist. A parent who leaves would simply be... taking their accountability with them, like a bag they packed. The child would be fine.
That is obviously not how it works. Because the child is not the accountability. The commitment is the accountability.
- You cannot control another person's thoughts, choices, or outcomes
- What you ARE accountable for is the commitment you made
- The commitment: to keep them safe, raise them well, and prepare them
- That commitment does not require you to disappear
Here is what the commitment actually asks of you.
That is it. That is the job.
Now ask yourself: how do you prepare someone for the adult world? By modelling it. By demonstrating what it looks like to look after yourself, set standards, maintain your identity, and function as a whole person.
You cannot teach what you are not demonstrating. A mum who has lost herself entirely is not modelling the adult world. She is modelling disappearance.
Taking care of yourself is not in conflict with the commitment. It is required by it.