Perfect Mother Hell

The whole idea of being a perfect mother is hell. It is a nightmare to walk into, yet it’s a place many of us must traverse at one time or another if we are to find ourselves.

I have walked through many dark nights of the soul trying to embody that image of the “perfect mother”. The all-nurturing, endlessly patient, ever-sacrificing woman who radiates light at every moment. Striving to be her is madness. It is a prison. It crushes the wild woman within us, that essential nature born of instinct, rhythm, and the cycles of the cosmos. Nature is wild. The feminine is wild. It ebbs and flows, unpredictable yet deeply attuned to stars and oceans, forests and black holes. When we suppress this wildness, we rip ourselves from our roots and risk losing our minds.

How many of us, as mothers, have tried to fit into the narrow mold that society offers? The mom with perfect hair and acceptable clothes, the one who signs up for all the right activities, cooks the proper meals with the USDA-approved portions of vegetables, makes sure the lessons are done, the math practiced, the faces clean. I tried for years to play that part. To dress the dress, walk the walk, fit the mold. And it was killing me inside.

Because I am not that mother. I am a wild woman of the forest, of the seas. I don’t always brush my hair. I don’t dream of swimming pools and manicured fences. I never fucking wanted that. I want to run barefoot with my husband and children. I want to show up to a family potluck smelling of pine and woodsmoke because I’d been sleeping under the stars. I want to eat ice cream for dinner. Because the USDA is full of shit anyway. I want to be known and loved for who I am, not for how well I fit into a corset, a polished mask, a pair of too-tight shoes.

Motherhood taught me that my wildness and rawness are not easy for the world, or sometimes even for my children, to accept. I remember one football game when my son was fifteen. I sat close enough to hear the coaches gather the boys after the game. One coach barked at them to shut up and kneel before him, as if he were some prophet. Then he spat out, “You guys played like shit.”

I bit my lip, but something in me snapped. Without thinking, I shouted loudly, “Hey! Chill out, dude!”

The whole team went silent. Eight coaches, 20 players, and of course my son, staring. I met the coach’s eyes. He said “I’m not talking to you lady!” My son was mortified. Later, the coach’s son called me a Karen, which made me laugh. But deep down the whole thing was extremely painful. The deep wound of the suppression of the dark feminine. What had really happened was that the wild woman within me slipped out. And though it embarrassed my son, it was honest.

But honesty has a cost. My kids began to prefer me hidden, tamed, unseen. They didn’t want the wild woman at their games. They wanted the normal mother, the one who looked like the others. And it broke my heart. For a time, I even considered burying her, silencing myself, combing the hair, putting on the smile, pretending to want the house with the pool. Anything to be wanted by my children. Having three boys in a divorced situation with their father very much a part of that world, the divide was getting stronger and stronger, and I resisted it for a long time.

But the truth is: I couldn’t. Not without dying inside.

What saved me was love. Meeting my husband I am with now was the great turning. He was the first man who looked straight into the chaos and ferocity of me and didn’t flinch. He encouraged the wild woman. He welcomed her howls, her sobs, her eruptions. And then he stayed. I thought his love would vanish once he knew the full truth of me. But it didn’t. He has walked with me into the underworld and back, held me through catharsis and shadow, and still, he loves me. That love cracked open the cage my father’s voice had built, the one that whispered, Be sweet, be shy, be good. Don’t sing, don’t paint, don’t dance. No one will love the wild girl.

My husband shattered that lie. And slowly, I began to believe it myself, that I could be wild and still be loved. I know some may think this an echo of the hero man saving the damsel in distress. I do not. In our dark nights of the soul, we all need someone to help us remember who I am. That someone is my husband.

Now, with our two children together, I feel I’ve been given a second life of motherhood. This time, I will not hide. I will not silence the wolf inside me. I will not iron myself into a mask. I want to walk into public places with uncombed hair and ask why everyone else spends so much time smoothing theirs. I want my children to run wild with sticky hands and dirty faces, laughing so loudly it shakes the air. I want them to know that they came into this world to be themselves, whoever that may be, and that is why I am their mother.

Because motherhood is not about perfect meals, perfect hair, or perfect manners. It is about the raw, untamed love that roars, weeps, howls, and creates. It is about breaking the mold and showing our children that freedom is possible.

That is the mother I am. That is the mother I choose to be.