1 Mom Perfectly Sums Up Why You Shouldn't Sweat the Age Gap Between Your Kids

Ali Harris, a UK-based blogger and soon-to-be mama of three, knows the pressure society puts on women to have the perfect family all too well — and has learned firsthand why worrying about these standards is such a waste of time.

The mom shared a powerful Instagram post with her followers explaining why motherhood should be on a woman's own terms after she lost her third baby.

"It's easy to obsess over when to have another child, many of us aiming for that 'perfect' age gap so they're close enough in age to play together but old enough for us to not have to be wiping more than one bum at once. Anything much bigger than that and we worry that they won't be close," she wrote.

Harris, who is currently pregnant again, explains why striving for the right timing between kids is unrealistic. "We all know life doesn't always work out as we plan and when that perceived perfect period of three years or so passes it can feel like you've failed — not just your own image of that perfect family but society's, too," she wrote.

In fact, having a miscarriage made her second guess her choice to have another child at one point. "Losing our third baby and then struggling to conceive again for three years and watching that age gap grow bigger and bigger, at times I questioned if having another baby was the right thing to do."

Any doubts she had about being pregnant diminished after seeing how her two kids have reacted to her pregnancy. "The thing I'm loving the most about this pregnancy? Sharing it with my two [kids] who are 8 and 6 and are so incredibly excited about this baby," she wrote. "The last few years have also taught me to move the parameters of what I thought was 'perfect' and embrace how things are, not how I — or anyone else — thinks they should be."