Have you ever felt judged as a mother based on the way your child has behaved?

In the same ways that mothers experience social pressures and expectations around how we should act and behave, our children also live under social pressure, and this starts in infancy.

I reflect on the markers of the ‘good baby’ up until the ‘good teenager’ and share findings from my PhD research on the consistent 5 themes/traits of the ‘good child’ identified across my research interviews.

Both the ‘good child’ and the ‘good mother’ rely on compliance and people-pleasing, but they can also be what help us to foster a sense of belonging and social acceptance.

This is part of why such concepts can remain so powerful, and yet I argue that they actually fuel many of our maternal experiences of resentment, anger, and guilt. The connection between the ‘good mother’ and ‘good child’ actually sets up mothers and our children up to experience DISconnection – from ourselves, and each other.

Examining these concepts and how they show up for us and our children allows us to cultivate broader perspectives on the dynamics that are at play as we mother, as well as challenge correlations often made between our children, our mothering, and our worthiness.