S3E3: The Myth Of The Always Patient Mom

Tired of pretending to be the “always patient” mom? Tessie and Diana call out the myth that good moms never lose their cool. From gentle parenting guilt to real-life meltdowns, this episode gets honest, funny, and freeing. Patience is human—not perfect.

Transcript

Tessie (00:01.196)
Hi, welcome to Pearls of Motherhood. I'm your host Tessie.

Diana (00:06.275)
And I'm your host, Diana. Today's episode is one we've been feeling lately because it's one of the many lies moms are fed on repeat. And it's this, you're supposed to be calm all the time. Even when you're sleep deprived and overstimulated and late for another appointment, you always have to be patient and gentle and graceful.

Tessie (00:29.614)
Yeah, and if you do lose your patience or snap, yell, or just want to scream into a pillow, then that's a failure. Like we just, we really hold ourselves to the standard and so does society. And at least that's what I feel like anyways. But today we're calling it out.

Diana (00:50.033)
Yeah.

Tessie (00:52.844)
The myth of the always patient mom is just that, is seriously a myth. I don't think that exists in nature. So we're diving into where this pressure comes from, what it costs us and why letting go of the gentle at all costs mindset might actually make us better parents.

Diana (00:57.486)
Mm-hmm.

Diana (01:12.389)
I'm ready for this. How about you? Let's get into it.

Tessie (01:14.112)
Yeah.

Tessie (01:20.174)
Yeah, so, okay, let's start. Why do we even believe we're supposed to be endlessly patient? Okay, for one, like just speaking of myself, lot of it comes from like society, know, modern parenting culture. There is like this whole trend of like gentle parenting. Social media for sure fuels the flames.

and all of the stuff that's out there. I always like to say like, I am not getting my parenting advice from social media. And these are just like buzzwords like gentle, intentional, positive, discipline. They all sound like good things, but then when taken to the extreme, they can make moms feel like emotional robots or like failures if you can't meet all of these standards or encompass all of these

traits all the time. Like it's easy for us to beat ourselves up. We're our number one critics for one, especially if we're like good mothers who have intentions of growing great children or raising great children. And like, it just all adds to the fire of the feels the fire that we can be like beat ourselves up and take all of that on. Right?

Diana (02:17.009)
Mm-hmm.

Diana (02:42.289)
Yeah, totally agree with you. I know that I hear it a lot from social media. And even though we've talked about like that we do our own thing, we do what's right for our own family because there's no one right way to be a mom. I fall into that. Sometimes I do fall into the trap of the social media of, the the rose colored glasses, basically.

that you see everything looks so perfect and you look around your house and it looks like a tornado just hit it. And you go, what did I just do wrong? Or your toddler is screaming at you because they didn't want to pee in the potty. And you go, what is wrong with my child? What did I do wrong? And I forget that it's all a myth. And on top of that, that screaming toddler, you have to stay calm through the whole thing. That's not me.

Tessie (03:18.157)
You

Diana (03:38.107)
So there's this idea called intensive mothering and it's, we've talked about it on previous episodes and it's the belief that a quote unquote good mom is totally self-sacrificing. She'll put her child's emotional, physical needs before her own and she has no room for any frustrations or anger or even walking away and taking a breath. And that's, that's so not fair because in any other job,

you are allowed to take a 10 minute break. You're allowed to go to the bathroom. I hope, I really hope that you can do that. But as a mother, you don't get that time. And when you want to take a break, you get looked down upon like, what's wrong with you? Why aren't you there all the time with your kid? Because I can't, okay? And then you feel like there's something wrong with you. At least that's how I feel about it.

Tessie (04:34.411)
Yeah, I feel like we.

Just like, I just lost my train of thought.

Diana (04:44.771)
You are about to give birth, it's okay.

Tessie (04:46.413)
here we go. I remembered.

Tessie (04:52.267)
No, it's true though. Like, okay, so when my first child was born, I watched this, I was like watching all kinds of Ted Talks. I'm like, I'm gonna learn how to be the best mom, the perfect mom, whatever. But I did watch this one that was really useful. it was basically the whole concept was always be kind to your children. And so I've always tried to like be kind, right? But just because you're kind doesn't mean that you don't have boundaries. Doesn't mean that you don't...

you know, raise your voice sometimes, or doesn't mean, I mean that you're not going to be, it doesn't mean that you're going to be perfect. And I do think there's a difference in like being a kind mother and having strong boundaries and high expectations. And at the same time, like not letting them rule the roost or walk all over you, you know, because I feel like that could just add its own complications mentally when.

Diana (05:30.865)
Right.

Diana (05:43.909)
Mm-hmm.

Tessie (05:51.649)
the child rules the house. I mean, I have so many, we're outnumbered. So if I had set my family up where I have a very like strict hierarchy, it's like, we are the adults, you are the children. We are not equal, period. And some people give me grief about that. that, especially my parents, I feel like they're like, they should this and that. And I'm just like, no, they're little kids. Like they can do that when they grow up.

Diana (05:57.935)
You are.

Diana (06:07.547)
Mm-hmm.

Diana (06:18.985)
Well, but they don't understand. So they are born with all their emotions, but no stops and they are all impulse. That's a disaster waiting to happen if they think that they are in charge. Like, can a kid jump off of a rooftop? They want to, should they? No. Like that's an easy one. So I have to agree with you. I have to agree with you. in our house,

Tessie (06:30.092)
Yeah.

Tessie (06:36.621)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Diana (06:45.809)
She understands that she does have an opinion. She is free to express her opinion. But if it falls into one of two categories, then we, my husband and I win. And that is we are there to keep her safe and to keep her healthy. And if it falls into those two categories, that's it. So I have to agree with that.

Tessie (07:04.17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes, like, if it... The kids are, pushing our buttons. We can walk away. We can take a break. It's okay. And, I'm sorry. Can we start over? I feel like I'm, not mentally...

Diana (07:20.517)
Yeah, sure.