Self-care is for Motherhood

My biological clock never ticked...ever. I had thought it through and I genuinely did not want children. When I was younger, having kids was on my list of things to do just after get married and go to law school. In fact, I had planned to walk across the stage for my juris doctorate, pregnant. Eventually I decided law wasn’t what I really wanted to do and I questioned everything else I “wanted” for my life, including children.

In my mind, moms often looked tired and unhappy to some degree. I attributed that to moms taking on the majority of childcare responsibilities and neglecting themselves as a result. And to an extent I still believe that is true, we as moms are often the primary caretakers of our children. I understand that there’s a lot that goes into why we take on that role, but what we do NOT have to do is neglect self care. In fact self care should be a priority.

What is self-care? I define self-care as any activity that we engage in to take care of our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health.  Stress is inevitable in all the roles we play, but self-care is essential, mom or not.  I never thought much about self-care before my munchkin, it just happened.  Now that I am a mom I realize that my relationship with self-care has changed and I must be more intentional about maintaining it.

 I want to encourage all women, especially moms, to honor themselves. Self-care isn’t selfish, it’s crucial to us being able to take care of our loved ones.  I believe that we can pour copious amounts of love into our children without neglecting ourselves. What do you think? Is that unrealistic? What are your thoughts on self-care and motherhood?