Learning Self-Care from Parenthood

The surprising way raising children taught me how to love myself better

I’ve heard all my life that motherhood makes you selfless. It’s a phrase you hear in baby showers and parenting books, woven into the cultural fabric: “Having kids will teach you how to put someone else first.” And in many ways, that’s true. Parenthood has asked me to stretch and soften in ways I never imagined. I’ve sacrificed time, sleep, comfort, autonomy, and whole chapters of my life to show up for my children. I’ve made peace with middle-of-the-night feedings, toddler meltdowns in grocery aisles, and countless days when my needs were bumped down the list because someone smaller needed me more.

Photo by Boxed Water Is Better on Unsplash

But here’s something I didn’t expect: raising my children didn’t just make me more selfless—it also taught me to take better care of myself.

Somewhere in the blur of diapers and school lunches, I began to notice a quiet question rising in my heart: Don’t I deserve the same kind of care I give my children?

At first, it felt like a radical thought. Moms, especially, are praised for putting themselves last. But when I started to really think about what I wanted to model for my children—how I wanted them to treat themselves, their bodies, their needs—I realized I couldn’t just teach that with words. I had to show them.