10 Things All Moms Need to Finally Let Go of in 2018

In this day and age, meeting a mom who never feels guilty is akin to happening upon a rainbow-colored unicorn at the grocery store. And the guilt — much of it self-inflicted — starts before we even give birth. If you had a C-section, you feel guilty. If you delivered vaginally but with an epidural, you feel guilty. Heck, if you delivered sans pain meds in a creek, you probably have some reason to feel guilty about something. And the pattern continues on through every stage of parenthood, whether you breastfeed or use formula, whether you cosleep or have them cry it out, whether you work or stay at home. We might think we do it to each other, but the truth is, we do plenty of it to ourselves. All it takes is merely looking across the playground at another mom and finding 17 things that prove you don’t measure up. Let’s stop the cycle.

“I don’t mean to judge, but . . .” “No offense, but . . .” Both of these phrases lead to nowhere good, yet they are spouted on Facebook comment threads as if it’s just letting fellow readers know the color of the sky. Listen, it’s no secret that judging, especially in private in the recesses of our own minds, is human nature, but can we all just do our best to keep those unwanted opinions to ourselves?

This one should be taken literally. Let. Go. Of. The. Phone. Yes, it’s next to impossible to survive without one, so don’t go canceling your data plan just yet. Instead, try to find ways to limit your codependent relationship with it. Try setting limits for how often you use it when with your kids, turn off push notifications, or consider deleting especially distracting apps, like Facebook (gasp!). Do whatever it takes — even if it’s only wearing clothes without pockets so you can’t have it touching your body 24/7 — so that your time with your kids is about them.

Milestones are certainly helpful for newbie parents who don’t have much intel on when babies and toddlers show developmental growth. But, aside from major red flags, most of the time, they just add unwanted pressure to parents’ lives. When you start comparing the caliber of puddle jumping your child is doing compared to another kid at the park, it’s time to take a step back and look carefully at who your child is, not who you expect them to be.

Just as you shouldn’t put preconceived expectations on your individualized child, you also shouldn’t operate under the assumption that your toddler needs, or deserves, to be 100 percent happy 100 percent of the time. Yes, we all want our kids to be happy, but sometimes, they’ll only be happy if you let them eat an entire bag of chocolate chips in the middle of a crosswalk without shoes on. Desperate times do call for desperate measures (hello, screen time on an airplane!), but on the whole, it’s important to remember that your job as a parent is to raise a good person . . . and sometimes you discover a child’s best, most impressive qualities when they’re bored, when they’re frustrated but learn to calm themselves down from a tantrum, or when they eventually move on from that thing they had to do that you wouldn’t let them do. In those moments, you learn that your child can actually be responsible for his or her own happiness, not you.

Parents know all too well the difference between expectation and reality. You plan an epic make-your-own pizza night, but your kid is in a foul mood the entire time, pasta sauce managed to coat half your kitchen cabinets, and you never got a single share-worthy photo. What’s the point?! Wanting to create a perfect activity, a memorable experience, or an enviable birthday party are all fine goals, but the fact is, your kids don’t care whether your latest arts-and-craft project was Pinterest-approved. They aren’t concerned about how many "likes" their snowman gets. And if it affects your ability to live in the moment with your family, you need to figure out how to stop caring about that, too.

Let’s get this out of the way: dads are great. Hands-on dads who make their kids’ lunches and walk them to school are great. Once that’s settled, perhaps we can all agree that it’s time we stop handing out trophies to specifically male parents who do laundry, cook dinner, struggle through Common Core math homework, or “babysit” the kids while mom is away. Mothers have long done these tasks without once getting a viral Twitter post about it, never mind an approving nod and smile from a stranger. So, as much as we love the caring coparents in our lives, it should go without saying that they fulfill their end of the bargain . . . without the need for a ticker-tape parade in their honor.

So, you still have 10, maybe 20 pounds (OK, 27 . . . 30 pounds) to go to your goal weight. As important as your physical health is, being consumed with frustration that you don’t look a certain way, post-kids, is certainly harmful to your mental health. Whether you’ve got scars and stretch marks, saggy boobs, or a serious need to go back in time to do daily Kegel exercises, it’s important to realize the things you can control when it comes to your body — and the things you can’t. Do your best to set manageable weight loss goals that fit into your lifestyle, but if this year, with two kids under 2, you just don’t have time to go to the gym twice a week, accept that.

You bribed her with a cookie to get her to sit still in her stroller. You let them sleep in bed with you when they woke up at 3 a.m. You had another shouting match with your husband with your kid within ear shot, and according to that one study you read, that means you have single-handedly created a sociopath child with zero coping skills who will never find love. No matter how big or small, we’ve all slipped up, and the one thing we can’t do is go back in time and erase what happened. Instead, forgiving yourself and trying your damnedest to forget about the time you forgot to properly secure them in the car seat for that five-minute drive to day care is the only way to truly move on.

For most women, those nine months of pregnancy gave us a good 40 weeks to devise unrealistic fantasies about what our lives as mothers would look like. “I’m not going to let having a baby change this,” we’d say. “When I’m a mom, I’m never going to do that,” we’d think. Oh, how things change. As soon as we stop comparing ourselves to what we’d built up in our own imaginations, we’ll be able to accept that we aren’t the parent we thought we’d be . . . and we don’t live the lifestyle we thought we’d live. Once we let go of the unrealistic ideal, we’ll have a greater capacity to be the best mom we actually can be.