By: Tayler Burcham and Alora Yee (Based off their Women Soaring Podcast episode: Things Christian Women Don’t Say Out Loud)

This Part of Motherhood.

Can we just say the thing out loud?

You love your children. Fiercely. Completely. With everything in you. And some days, motherhood is still the hardest,

loneliest, most disorienting thing you have ever done in your life.

Those two things are not opposites. They can both be completely true at the same time.

If you’ve ever thought any of the following — keep reading.

The phrases we don’t say out loud

  • “I have nothing left to give you tonight.”
  • “I lost myself so completely in motherhood I can’t even remember what I liked before kids.”
  • “I love my children — but some days I grieve the life I had before them.”

If even one of those made you exhale — you are in exactly the right place.

“I have nothing left to give you tonight.”

There were seasons where both Tayler and Alora looked forward to bedtime — not because they wanted to rest, but

because it meant the day was finally over. They were mentally clocking out. And the guilt that came with that? Heavy.

But here’s the perspective shift that actually helped: your kids don’t need a perfect mom. They need a present one.

Alora described watching a video once — the same day shown from a mom’s perspective and then from her child’s.

Mom’s version was a highlight reel of everything she didn’t do. Her child’s version? I got to eat breakfast with mom. I

got to sit on the couch with mom. I got to fall asleep next to mom.

“Your children are not keeping score the way you are. What feels like bare minimum to you is everything

to them.”

The days you had nothing left and showed up anyway? Those count more than you know.

“I lost myself so completely I can’t remember what I liked before kids.”

This one hit home for both of them in a real way. Tayler described being asked to fill out a simple questionnaire —

favorite color, favorite candy, hobbies — and not being able to answer a single one. She was the one who wrote the

questionnaire. For other moms. And she couldn’t fill it out herself.

“I wasn’t really a person anymore. I was just mom. That was it. — Alora”

Losing your identity in motherhood is a real grief. It sneaks up slowly. One day you look in the mirror and realize you

genuinely cannot tell anyone your favorite movie anymore because you don’t know.

Here’s the hope: the woman who comes out the other side of that season is not the same woman who went in. And

that is not a loss. That is God shaping something new. The interests come back. The hobbies come back. They look

different — but they come back.

“I grieve the life I had before them — and I’ve never said that out loud.”

This is the one that carries the most shame. Because how do you say — I love my children AND I miss who I was

before them — without feeling like a terrible mother?

You say it here. Because this is a safe space.

Grieving your pre-mom self does not mean you wish your children away. It means you are honest. And that honesty

means you’re paying attention to something important — that you matter too. Not just as a mom. As a person.

God is not done writing your story. The woman you are becoming through every hard, depleted, bathroom-floor

season — she is worth getting to know.

“Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.”

— Psalm 127:3

You are not failing motherhood. You are doing it — honestly, imperfectly, and with so much love. That is enough. You

are enough.

Listen to the Women Soaring Podcast — Things Christian Women Don’t Say Out Loud, Episode 3. Find us on Spotify,

Apple Podcasts & YouTube. Follow us @thewomensoaring on Instagram or Facebook

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