All That We Carry: The Invisible Weight of Motherhood

There’s no way to list it all.

Not the snacks packed before anyone wakes up.
Not the mental notes—doctor’s appointments, shoe sizes, that thing they said at bedtime we don’t want to forget.
Not the way we instinctively know which cry means tired and which one means “I just need you close.”

No one sees the weight we carry
because we’ve learned to carry it quietly.

We answer emails with a baby crying in the background.
We wipe tears, prep meals, and hold space—for everyone else’s needs before our own.
We put on a screen for ten minutes of quiet and feel the guilt creep in before the coffee even cools.
We carry their feelings and our own, often in the same breath.

We carry the guilt.
The worry.
The version of ourselves we barely recognize.
We carry the “shoulds” and the “why-can’t-I-justs.”
We stretch ourselves thin. Sometimes we break.
But even then—somehow—we keep going.

And then, on top of it all, there’s the judgment.
For staying home. For going to work.
For not choosing one over the other—because let’s be honest, sometimes there is no real choice.

Some of us work because we need to.
Some of us stay home and feel forgotten.
Either way, someone always has something to say.

But they don’t see the full story.
They don’t live in our skin or our schedules.
They don’t see what we’re holding—mentally, emotionally, physically.
They don’t carry what we carry.

Motherhood is invisible work.
It doesn’t come with promotions or thank-yous or paid time off.
It’s found in the scraped knees we kiss, the little lunches we pack with love, the “I love you” whispered when we’re running on fumes.
It’s found in the moments we stay present when all we want is a moment to ourselves.

This Mother’s Day, I don’t want flowers that wilt by next week.
I want us to feel seen.
I want us to be reminded that what we do—what we are—is enough.

Even when we feel lost in it.
Even when we’re not sure we’re doing it right.

To the moms who carry so much and still show up with love: I see you.
To the moms who wonder if they’re doing enough: you are.
To the moms who feel like they have to do it all alone: you’re not supposed to.

You are the strength.
You are the tenderness.
You are the love holding everything together.

Happy Mother’s Day.
You are doing holy work, even when it feels like no one notices.