The Hardest Part Of Motherhood

The hardest part of motherhood is that we don’t get to keep any of it.

Not the tiny hands wrapped around ours.
Not the way they mispronounce our names.
Not the way they crawl into our bed at dawn, as if we are the safest place in the world.

We don’t get to freeze these moments or tuck them away for later. We don’t get to pause time and stay inside the versions of our children that feel so small and so ours.

We only get to witness it.
To hold it for a moment.
To love it while it is passing.

Motherhood teaches us this quietly, in the spaces between milestones. One day you’re rocking a baby who needs you for everything. And then, without warning, you’re watching them take steps away from you, toward the world, toward independence, toward becoming who they are meant to be.

And it is beautiful.
And it is heartbreaking.
Often at the very same time.

Motherhood is learning to fall in love with goodbyes.

Not the kind that are loud or dramatic, but the quiet ones. The invisible ones. The ones we don’t realize are happening until they are already gone.

The baby who needed your body to feel safe.
The toddler who believed you were magic.
The child who still looks back to make sure you’re there before walking into something new.

Each version leaves softly, like a season changing overnight. You wake up one morning and something is different. Their voice sounds older. Their questions sound deeper. Their world is growing, even if you wish you could keep them small just a little longer.

And yet…

We keep showing up.

We keep pouring love into moments we know we cannot keep. We keep choosing presence even when it hurts. We keep holding space for who they are becoming, even as we quietly miss who they used to be.

Because love was never meant to be owned.
It was meant to be given.

That is the ache of motherhood.
And that is the beauty.

It is the privilege of being someone’s safe place, even if only for a season. It is the honor of being part of their becoming. And it is the quiet courage it takes to love something so deeply while knowing it will change.

We don’t get to keep the moments.
But we get to keep the love.

And sometimes, that has to be enough. ❤️