Wanting to be better does not mean you are bad at being a mom. Sometimes mothering is really difficult. And when mothering is really difficult, we want to better understand what is not working so that we can do something differently.
“I just want to be a better mom.”
I think every mother has had that thought at some point in her mothering career.
Usually, that thought begins with noticing something. Something does not feel right, is not working, or is not turning out the way we hoped. We want to understand what is happening and find a way to approach it differently.
That noticing does not finish the work, but it is where the work begins.
Humaning is hard
We are all human, and humaning is hard enough when we are only taking care of ourselves. Then we add another person. Then we find ourselves raising one or several smaller humans, each doing their own humaning, with their own needs, emotions, personalities, and ways of experiencing the world.
Our children will struggle sometimes, and much of that is simply part of growing up. Depending on their age, they may test limits, resist expectations, feel emotions bigger than they know what to do with, make many mistakes, and respond in ways we do not understand. Some of it will surprise us, and some of it may scare us.
That does not automatically mean something is wrong with our children, ourselves, or that we are failing them. They are still learning how to be people, we can always learn more about how to parent, and there will be times when we struggle to know how to respond. That is normal too.
The world we are parenting in has also changed. A post-COVID world is different from the one that came before it. Our children have almost constant access to screens and an enormous amount of information, which brings real benefits and real challenges. Now AI is adding another curveball. We are often responding to things neither we nor our own parents encountered in the same way, so we will not always know right away what our children need.
The first question is:
What are we noticing?
Then:
What do we want to do with what we have noticed?
Sometimes we want to understand it better, recognize what may be contributing, and begin changing course in the direction we believe is best for ourselves, our children, and our family.
That is often what sits underneath “I want to be a better mom.” But that sentence can mean many different things.
What are you comparing yourself to?
“I want to be a better mom” is not always about how we are interacting with our children or about a struggle within the family. Sometimes it comes from looking at other mothers.
The problem is that we are comparing the full reality of our lives with the small part of someone else’s life that we can see.
We see other mothers at school drop-off, nicely put together, everyone smiling and ready to begin the day. And you, well, you’re exhausted and waiting for the coffee to kick in. Your child got dressed somewhere in the rush to get out the door, and there may have been some heated negotiating before you managed to make up, say “I love you,” and scoot them into class.
Then, as you’re pulling away from school, you notice the other cars around you and look at your own, which appears to have just completed a cross-country road race. Inside, there is enough snack debris to support a small country, and you could probably identify your children’s ages, sports, and preferred snacks from the things floating around in it.
And there you are, comparing yourself again.
“How do they do it?”
“Why does it look so easy for them?”
“What am I doing wrong?”
Or perhaps you are scrolling Instagram, TikTok, or Pinterest, where people show you what a good mother is supposed to look like: the activities, the home, the meaningful family time.
Our brains are awfully fast at looking, comparing, creating an internal statement, and moving on to the next thing.
“She has it together. I do not.”
“I should be doing more.”
“She is a better mom than I am.”
The comparison may last only a moment, but the feeling it creates, or the feeling created by hundreds of those moments, tends to stay with us longer. That is where “I wish I were a better mom” can slowly start to feel like “Maybe I am a bad mom.”
Here is the thing: you are standing inside every part of your own motherhood while viewing only selected moments of theirs, the ones they choose to show you. That does not tell you much about how well anyone is actually parenting.
So a different question might be: What part of the “better mom” I am seeing is the part I actually want?
Not just the fantasy of “Wouldn’t it be nice?”
Of course it would be nice to have a nanny, a house cleaner, an assistant, or a home where nothing ever needs to be repaired or replaced. It might be nice to have an equal partner helping with all of it, or more time, or more money.
But are those things within your actual reach? Do you have the time, finances, energy, or desire to do what you are seeing? More importantly, is that what you really want?
Maybe what you actually want is ten quiet minutes. Maybe you want help getting everyone out the door in the morning. Maybe you want less conflict with your child, time to finish your coffee while it is still hot, or a partner who notices what needs to be done without waiting to be asked.
Recognizing when we’re comparing ourselves gives us a chance to stop and ask: Have we found something we genuinely want? Have we noticed support that is missing from our lives? Or are we simply comparing our whole reality with someone else’s storefront window?
This can become even harder when we feel watched or judged while parenting in public. I have written more about how outside judgment can change the way we parent.
Is there something you genuinely want to do differently?
Sometimes comparison is not what is happening. Sometimes we recognize something in the way we are parenting that we genuinely do not like and want to change.
Maybe we are yelling more than we want to. Maybe we and our child seem to enter a power struggle over everything. Maybe the way we respond would not bother us, but it is not landing the same way with our child.
Perhaps we correct or criticize our child in front of a sibling, friend, or another parent and realize afterward that it did not feel good. We can see that it embarrassed or hurt them, and we do not want to keep handling those moments the same way.
Recognizing this, taking our child’s experience into account, and considering a different approach is part of becoming a better mom.
And none of us gets it right every time. When we miss, we can go back.
“I am sorry I yelled. That is not how I wanted to talk to you.”
Repairing the moment matters too, and it shows our children what taking responsibility looks like.
Sometimes understanding what we want to do differently means looking beyond the interaction itself.
Our child’s development, temperament, stress, relationships, or something else happening in their life may be affecting what is happening between us. So may our own stress, exhaustion, history, or circumstances. And sometimes there is something larger happening around the whole family.
Looking at the fuller picture can help us better understand what is happening and what we may want to do differently.
When the parenting we received shows up
Sometimes we realize that things we did not like when our parents were raising us are now showing up in how we parent. We hear ourselves using the same words, tone, or response that we promised ourselves we would never use.
We may also see our children react in ways that feel familiar: the look on their face, the anger, the defensiveness, the shutdown. We recognize it because we remember feeling or responding that way ourselves.
Now we can see the interaction from both sides. We can see that we’re repeating something we didn’t like as a child, see how it is affecting our child, and decide to do something differently rather than continue simply because it is what we know.
“I do not like this interaction. I can see how it is affecting my child, and I want to engage differently.”
When the thought, “I want to be a better mom,” comes up, that can be the spark where change begins. It gives us a place to start looking at what isn’t working, what we don’t like, and what we want to do differently.
Then we can choose what we want to do with what we’ve noticed.
But even when we want to do something differently, it can be easy to fall back into familiar patterns: “This is how everyone does it.” “This is how I was parented.” “This is the only way I know how to parent.”
Those things may be true. But now we have also noticed something else. Something about this interaction doesn’t feel right to us, or we can see that it isn’t having the effect we want it to have.
That’s when we can start asking whether the old way was actually supportive or whether it may have caused hurt that we now know how to recognize.
Maybe we did turn out fine. Maybe we learned to manage something because we had to. That does not mean the same response is what our child needs, especially if we can see it creating hurt, distance, fear, or a breakdown in the relationship.
Our child is their own person with their own experience. What worked for us, or for everyone else, or what we learned to live with, may not work for the child in front of us.
Adding to our parenting toolbox
Once we recognize something we want to do differently, the next question may be whether we know another way to do it.
In this day and age, we know more about child development and about what supports children socially, emotionally, and physically. We have more information about anxiety, neurodivergence, emotional regulation, behavior, routines, structure, conflict, and power struggles, and about the many ways children experience and respond to the world.
A tool that helps one child may not help another. Something that works well in one situation may create more conflict or shutdown in another, and what works for a four-year-old often does not work for a fourteen-year-old.
Having all this information does not give us one correct way to parent every child. It gives us more ways to understand what may be happening and a larger toolbox to parent from.
And we do not need to use every parenting method we encounter. We do not need every tool in the store. We need tools that help us with the child and the situation in front of us.
When the tools we have are not helping this child with this struggle, we can learn and add more. We can understand why a tool works, when it is useful, and which children and situations it fits.
Learning another way is not evidence that we have failed. It means we are responding to the child who is actually in front of us.
Are you parenting beyond your available capacity?
Our parenting toolbox isn’t only about how we support our children. Sometimes the tool that’s missing is one we need for ourselves.
A new parenting strategy might help, but it might not be what we need when we’re exhausted, overwhelmed, or lacking support. We might simply not have enough physical energy, patience, or mental and emotional capacity left.
Just as there is a lot of information about children and how to parent them, there is also a lot of research and information about parental well-being and what happens when the demands of parenting become too much and we have less capacity to respond to our children in the ways we would like to.
That doesn’t mean self-care isn’t important. It is. But basic self-care alone can’t make up for a parenting load that has exceeded what one person can reasonably sustain.
We might not be able to change all of our responsibilities or circumstances, but we can look at the areas where change might be possible. We can look at what’s depleting our capacity, where we can replenish it, and what support is missing. Then we can decide where we can ask for help, what can be shared or passed off to someone else, and what we can let go of.
Caring for ourselves as parents is an important part of the work, not something separate from it.
Support can come in many different ways. It might mean asking someone close to us for help with pickup, dinner, or watching the kids for an evening. It might mean finding something in our community, joining a moms’ group, or seeking counseling or coaching.
Having something in our lives that belongs to us is also a form of support. It can be going to the gym, taking a class, spending time with friends, reading, or doing something we enjoy simply because we enjoy it. Something that is just ours and isn’t about parenting.
Many of us get so used to carrying the parenting load, along with everything else we’re carrying, that we don’t even notice how depleted we’ve become until we’re physically and emotionally exhausted.
Realizing that we need some support isn’t a sign that we’re failing at parenting. Asking for support is another way of caring for ourselves. It’s part of being human, and having as much support as we can during the parenting years can make a real difference.
Sometimes “I want to be a better mom” is simply recognizing that there is something we want to do differently in how we show up for our children and parent them. Sometimes it means recognizing parts of our own lives that we want to improve or change. And sometimes it means taking better care of ourselves so we can be the moms we want to be.
If you want help figuring out what is happening
Sometimes we know something isn’t working but still aren’t sure what is happening, why it keeps happening, or what to do differently.
That’s where parent coaching can help. We look at what is happening with your child, with you, and between you. We look at what you’ve tried, what’s working, what isn’t, and what you want to be different.
Then we figure out together what makes sense for you, your child, your family, and your life.
Learn more about parent coaching.
Sources & Further Reading
If you’d like to learn more about parental burnout, the demands and pressures parents carry, and the importance of support for parents and caregivers, these are excellent places to start.
Urbanowicz, A. M., Verger, N. B., Shankland, R., Rance, J., Bennett, P., & Gauchet, A. (2026). A meta-analysis of parental burnout interventions. Journal of Affective Disorders, 399, 121022.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41443317/
Office of the Surgeon General. (2024). Parents under pressure: The U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on the mental health and well-being of parents. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK606667/
American Psychological Association. (2024). What advice do psychologists have to offer on how parents can manage stress and burnout?