You Matter—A Call for a Bigger Life in Motherhood

If no one has told you today: what you’re doing matters. You matter. Keep going. But you shouldn’t have to do it alone. And you shouldn’t have to shrink into just one version of yourself to do it.

Motherhood can feel like an endless offering of yourself—your body, your time, your sleep, your heart—given in ways both visible and invisible. Some days, it feels like you are disappearing into the work of mothering, your name replaced by Mama, your desires set aside for the needs of those who depend on you. And yet, even in the unseen, even in the unspoken, what you do shapes the world.

The Science of Maternal Impact

Science tells us that the presence of a loving caregiver physically alters a child’s brain. The warmth of your voice, the security of your touch, the way you respond when they cry—these moments sculpt neural pathways that define a child’s capacity for connection, resilience, and love. The work of mothering, often dismissed as mundane, is in fact biological magic. You are not just raising children; you are shaping the very foundation of their being.

And yet, culture rarely acknowledges the depth of this labor. The unseen hours of holding, soothing, guiding—the sacrifices made without recognition. Instead, mothers are asked to be everything, all at once: nurturing yet independent, selfless yet ambitious, endlessly giving but never depleted. It is an impossible contradiction, one that feminism must continue to dismantle.

You Are More Than Motherhood—And That Makes You a Better Mother

Motherhood does not have to be an act of erasure. It does not have to be a small, isolated role where everything else fades. We are not meant to mother in solitude, nor are we meant to shrink into it.

You are not just Mama—you are a thinker, an athlete, a builder, a creator, a friend, a strategist, a dreamer, a gamer, a leader, an adventurer, an artist, a professional. You are expansive. And the more you claim all the pieces of yourself, the more your children will see what is possible.

Philosophers have long debated what gives life meaning. Some say it is found in purpose, others in joy, others in contribution to something beyond oneself. Motherhood contains all of these things, and yet, it is often framed as something a woman loses herself to rather than something she expands into.

But what if we saw it differently? What if, instead of depletion, we viewed motherhood as an evolution? What if every sacrifice, every act of care, was not a narrowing, but an opening—a deepening of who we are?

A Poetic Reminder

Mary Oliver, in her poem Wild Geese, writes:

“You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.”

Motherhood is not a performance of perfection. It is not a test of endurance. You do not have to prove yourself to be worthy of rest, of joy, of kindness—both from others and from yourself. You only have to love what you love, in the best way you can. That is enough.

If You Need to Hear This Today

Let this be the voice that breaks through the noise: You matter. The way you wake in the night, the way you hold tiny hands, the way you worry and hope and love—all of it matters. But you don’t have to do it in isolation. You don’t have to disappear into it.

So keep going. Not because you have to, not because you should, but because you are part of something bigger. A new way of being. A world where motherhood is vast, where women are whole, where we step fully into every version of ourselves—without apology.