161 | When “You’re a Good Mom” Makes You Feel Like A Fraud

Hey Mama!

You just got the card. The sweet words. The “You’re such a good mom.”

And for a split second it feels warm… until your stomach drops.

Because your mind is already pulling up the footage. The tone. The snapping. The moment you wanted to be anywhere else. And now you’re smiling on the outside while thinking, I don’t deserve this. If they really knew, they wouldn’t say that.

This is what happens when mom guilt keeps you stuck: it turns encouragement into a threat. It trains you to keep receipts and live in a constant “prove you’re not failing” pressure, especially as a Christian mom who wants to honor God and still feels like a fraud.

This Mother’s Day episode will help you name the pattern (hello, “replay loop”) and interrupt it with truth because “you’re a good mom” shouldn’t send you into self-condemnation.

What you'll get out of today's episode:

• Why guilt makes your worst moment feel like your truest moment
• How to tell yourself the whole story (not just the worst clip)
• What it looks like to receive encouragement without disqualifying yourself

If you’ve felt this in other areas of motherhood too—rest, discipline, your emotions, your faith—this might not be the first time you’ve noticed this pattern.

If you’re starting to notice this pattern, take the Mom Guilt Breakthrough Quiz. 

More FREE Resources:

Take The Quiz: Break Through Mom Guilt Quiz

Become a Restored Mind Mama: Sign Up Here

FREE Community:  Break Free From Mom Guilt

Instagram: @_restoredmind

Email: carolinethao@restoredmindllc.com

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It's time to become to the mom you want to be. You can do hard things!
"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me"- Philippians 4:13

Transcript

0:00

Ever get told that you're such a great mom, and then you instantly feel guilt instead of feeling encouraged? Like, the guilt voice just gets louder and louder. Well, today we're talking about why compliments can sting when you're stuck in mom guilt, and how God defines you by truth, not by your mistakes. Take a listen. Welcome to The Restored Mind, biblical wisdom for Christian moms who are tired of guilt, tension, and feeling divided. Here, we build a woven life with peace, growth, and connection. I'm Caroline Tau. Let's do this. If you're realizing guilt has been way louder than the truth, take my Mom Guilt Breakthrough Quiz. It's going to help you name your guilt type and give you clear next steps to start breaking free. The link is in the show notes. All right. Welcome back, mamas. I am so excited for today's episode, because today we are gonna be celebrating Mother's Day. So happy Mother's Day to all of you mamas out there. You are rocking it. To be honest with you, I know that I'm a couple of days early, but I really wanted to get this message out because The Restored Mind, as a reminder, is going on a biweekly schedule. So a lot of things changing here, but still showing up on the podcast, because it's something that I love to do. Today I just wanted to celebrate you. Because becoming a mom is one of the greatest gifts that we have received, and I just wanna be able to celebrate it with you. Around this time, you might start receiving flowers and cards and thank you notes from your kids telling you that you're just the best mom ever. And on the outside, you're receiving it, and, you know, it feels good in the moment, but you're wondering,"Okay, but am I really the best mom ever? Am I the greatest mom?" Deep down inside, you are also struggling to actually believe the compliments that are being given to you. And I know that it's true for me because I have received compliments in the past like,"You're such a good mom. You're doing great things with your kids." And I don't believe those words were meant to trigger guilt. I actually believe they meant it from the bottom of their heart. But what they were saying triggered guilt inside of me because I knew I was not showing up as the mom that I wanted to be. I would receive the compliment, and of course, I would just thank them and then move on about my day. But as the day went on, I would just think about all of those times that I've messed up. And I would think,"Am I really doing a good job? Am I really the best mom ever?" I mean, I complain about making their meals. I complain about washing their clothes, and I just wanted to break free from my kids. I wanted to get away from them. I remember being annoyed by them and raising my voice and snapping at them, and those are really what I believed a good mom does not do. So it led me to just get stuck in this mom guilt cycle. And truthfully, I don't believe that this is a topic that many moms talk about because there's a hidden pressure there that no one sees, and the guilt is really silent. Honestly, we carry this guilt by ourselves. Maybe not a lot of people know about it. We fear that moms are not gonna be able to relate, that we have secretly wanted to sneak away from our kids, and then we feel bad for wanting that. And so we're just always in this constant cycle of guilt, and it can be incredibly daunting when someone praises us because they see us as moms who's doing this great job, and we can say thank you and move on. But again, deep down inside, we're just wrestling with it. We're wrestling with becoming the mom that we want to be. We feel like we are falling behind constantly or that we just don't have it all together. And the reason I believe this happens is because mom guilt trains us to focus on the failures that we have had. Many moms don't struggle with a lack of love. We have so much to give to our kids. What we struggle with is being hyper-aware of the mistakes that we have made. And so you start to remember the things that you've said wrong. Maybe it was the tone that you used, or you complained again about making dinner. You just snapped at your kids, and now you feel bad'cause you didn't have self-control in that moment. You're not even thinking about self-control. You're just thinking about how that moment drove up your emotions to the point where you snapped. And sometimes it could just be that you're overstimulated. I remember when my youngest was still a toddler. She was almost a year old and walking by this time, so she was extremely clingy. She would follow me everywhere, like to the kitchen, and I remember she would be stuck to me like glue, crying as she was walking after me for me to pick her up or pulling at my legs to signal to me that she wants to be picked up or wants my attention. And that was... Honestly, it was very overstimulating. It was exhausting in a way because mentally I wanted to take a break from her, but I knew that dinnertime was coming up and I needed to make dinner, And I just felt like I was stuck and alone in that season of being overstimulated with just simple touches. And of course, I would feel bad because she didn't know that. She didn't know any better. I mean, I should have known better as the mom, But it didn't feel like that. It just felt like I was failing no matter what I was doing But also in that time, as you are being hyper-focused on the mistakes that you've made, there's also something else that you're doing, which is overlooking all of the good things that you've done You're so busy remembering those hard moments that you overlook all of the meals that you've made for them, the hugs that you gave them because they were just simply so tired and wanted to sleep on you. You end up overlooking all of the prayers that you've prayed over your children, the bedtime stories, and the bedtime routines that you've built,, or those pockets of joy that you've created that allowed them to look forward to certain moments in the day. You end up also overlooking how consistent you are and how you're showing up for them, even if it's not perfect. And of course, all of that is emotional labor that no one sees. It's also mental and, of course, physical labor as well, but really, it's the work behind the scene that no one sees, but it's felt through how you show up for them through your love for them. And the truth is that guilt magnifies the failures. Again, it makes you hyper-focused on the mistakes that you've made, and it ends up minimizing all of the faithfulness that you pour out And scripture actually speaks directly to that kind of unseen faithfulness. It's in Galatians 6, 9, where it says, let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. And mama, the meals, the prayers, the showing up time and time again, that is doing good. Even when it feels ordinary, even when it feels like it was not done well, those are the things that we are sowing in our motherhood journey. And guilt has a way of making your worst moments feel like those are the truest moments of your motherhood journey. So encouragement or compliments doesn't land as comfort. It actually lands as a little miniature threat. It just kind of comes at you and it makes you stop for a moment and think, whoa, am I a good mom? Why is someone praising me for this when I just yelled at my kids three minutes ago? It's because guilt trains you to keep those types of records. It replays the hard moments and the tone that you've used, the moment that you snapped, your impatience, and it convinces you that those moments are going to define you. and when you're living under that type of cycle, even those sincere compliments feels a little bit unsafe because you're afraid that someone's going to discover parts of the things that you are ashamed of. And when this happens, I want you to take a moment and notice this internal argument that you're having with yourself. You'll probably say something like, you know what, this compliment, it can't be true because I just yelled. But I want you to call it for what it is, which is guilt trying to diminish the truth. And I want you to tell yourself the whole story, all right? Not just the worst clip. a hard moment. Acknowledge it. But you also prayed over your kids. You showed up for them. You made a mistake and you apologized for it. You continued to love them anyway. And then, of course, I want you to also practice receiving. So instead of deflecting or saying, no, I'm not, or just halfway taking it in and halfway believing it, I want you to receive it. I want you to say thank you for that. I needed that. Because in truth, you probably did. You just didn't know it. And I also love that motherhood is not defined by your worst moments. Anything that you do in life is not defined by your worst moments. And in Christ or in times where we just feel like we're being called out by lies that our whole entire motherhood journey has been nothing but, you know, us yelling or making a mistake. It's not the final word that gets the say so in how your mother journey ends. It's really God. And he tells you this truth about you and how much he loves you. I mean, think about his outpouring of mercy and grace over your life. In all aspects of your life, as a matter of fact, not just you as a person, but you as a mom and how that can overflow into how you mother, how you are mothering. You're just not realizing it because you're being distracted. And that's what the enemy wants you to do. The enemy wants you to become distracted with this because once it takes that away from you, once it takes this joy that you get to have with your family and distract you with mom guilt telling you that you are not a great mom, you are the yelling mom or just pulling you away from being fully present with your family. That's when it gets the opportunity to get to your family. Not that there's not any other means and how the enemy can get your family. But if you really think about it in Genesis. As you read about the fall of creation, the serpent talks to Eve, but doesn't talk to Adam. He tells Eve, he actually questions Eve. Did God really say, you know, and that's like when you take the compliment of someone saying, oh, my gosh, you're doing such a great job with your kids. You're the best mom. And you're thinking. Am I really the best mom? It's very similar to that. You see how it plays out into our life, at least in my opinion, because I see it happen. I lived through it. And now I've realized like I was that I was the one who did receive the compliment, but not fully believing it because I had the enemy on the other side questioning that compliment. And of course, I played into that distraction. I was like, huh, am I really a good mom? Because I just did X, Y, Z. But that's not how God wants you to see your journey. Now, I'm not trying to speak for God, but I do know that He wants us to have this beautiful, meaningful life that gives value not only to ourselves, but to the people around us. And He doesn't do that through telling us consistently that we're failing. He might lovingly show us where we are failing, but there is truth and love in that, and it's done in love, not in a way that keeps you feeling like you're just a complete failure no matter what you do. So when guilt gets louder than the truth, it doesn't just make you feel bad, it actually keeps you mentally absent. You know, you're stuck in that replay loop, and it makes you think that you have to earn the right to be honored. So, like, your track record has to be perfect in order for you to fully receive that compliment, but that is not true at all. Because a good mom is not a mom who is perfect. I really don't believe that there's a single mom out there that is perfect, because that means they would have had to have made no mistakes and would have had to know everything. And the only person that I believe has ever been perfect is Jesus, and we're not Him. And the thing is, we are allowed to make mistakes because. We are learning and growing. And as we're doing that, we're building our house on the solid rock. And of course, as the storm hits, which is the storm of guilt, it does not tear our house apart. It might rattle it. It might put some dent in it. But we still are able to make those repairs and to just continue to show up again and again without giving up. So I hope that this episode encouraged you to Really just receive Mother's Day compliments and celebrate the day with honor without disqualifying yourself. Again, you don't need to be perfect to be appreciated. You just need to be faithful. And that's exactly what you're doing as you're showing up every day trying to be and working towards being the mom that you've always envisioned yourself to be. So as you go out the rest of the week and as you receive those compliments when they come in, I just want you to pause and breathe and simply receive it by saying thank you and genuinely meaning it without making this mental argument with yourself about things that just happened that you weren't so proud of. All right? Just let it land and allow it to penetrate your heart and mind so that you may begin to see it for yourself. Because truth is, you are incredibly deeply loved. God loves you so much. And you are doing work for the kingdom of God as you're serving your family, although imperfectly but faithfully. Becoming the mom that you can be is incredibly hard. But as I always say, you can do hard things. Thanks for spending time with me today, mama. If this episode encouraged you, would you share it with another mom who needs it too? And don't forget to hit follow so the next time a new episode drops, it's waiting for you. Until next time, go in peace