Mothering as a devotional practice

I have been thinking a lot lately about mothering as a devotional practice.

This sense of returning again and again. Staying in relationship with what is here. Offering yourself to something, not because it is always easy or beautiful, but because it matters so deeply.

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That is what mothering can feel like to me.

It is a continual being asked of the body, the heart, the nervous system. To rise, to tend, to respond, to hold, to soothe, to begin again. There is love in it, of course. There is wonder and sweetness and all sorts of tender, ordinary beauty. But there is also exhaustion, monotony, frustration, grief, overstimulation, sacrifice, and the kind of fatigue that I had never imagined.

And still, there is devotion.

What has been sitting with me too is how little room there seems to be for mothers to say any of this out loud without someone trying to tidy it up.

Recently I was met with comments about how my tiredness and exhaustion as a full-time twin mum might be because of the pressure I put on myself, or the standards I hold around my children. And look, maybe there are places where I could soften. I am not above reflection. But that was not really the point. What landed in me was that familiar feeling of not quite being met. Of my experience being interpreted before it was properly heard.

As if the difficulty must mean I am doing something wrong.

As if when a mother says things are hard, what she is really revealing is a failure of mindset, organisation, flexibility, or perspective.

As if I have somehow never thought of putting the TV on, or using childcare, or finding ways to make life easier.

It is such a strange thing, the way people rush to solve mothers. The quick suggestions, subtle corrections and this implication that if we are struggling, there must be a better system we simply have not considered yet.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I do not need solutions or someone to troubleshoot my life. Sometimes I just want space for the truth of it. Space for things to be hard. Space for my discomfort to exist without someone trying to usher me out of it.

Why are people so uncomfortable with a mother being honest about the strain of care?

Why does maternal exhaustion seem to make people so twitchy?

There is this expectation, often unspoken but everywhere, that mothers should be tired in a graceful way. We should be stretched but still grateful. Honest, but not too honest. We can admit that motherhood is full on, but only if we quickly follow it with something redeeming, something cheerful, something that reassures everyone that we know how lucky we are.

And I do know. I know the privilege and beauty of this life. I know how wanted my children are. I know how sacred this time is.

But love does not erase labour.

And devotion does not cancel out depletion.

That feels important to say.

Because when a man burns himself out through work, long hours, ambition, or building something in the world, there is often admiration wrapped around the concern. His effort makes sense to people. It is legible. It is recognised as commitment, drive, provision, success. Even when there is worry, there is often status in it too.

And usually, somewhere underneath it all, there is support holding him up. Someone making meals. Someone remembering the birthdays. Someone booking the appointments, buying the groceries, noticing the school forms, replacing the outgrown shoes, keeping the household running.

Yet when a mother is worn thin by mothering, there is far less reverence. Much less patience. Less curiosity and collective support. It’s often met with more advice, more minimising and a suspicion that perhaps she is making it harder than it needs to be.

And all of this is happening inside a broader set of inequities that still shape so much of family life. The mental load is still uneven. The invisible planning is still uneven. The interruptions are uneven. The loss of uninterrupted time, career progression, financial independence, superannuation, bodily autonomy, rest, and often identity itself, is uneven. The assumption that a mother will absorb what needs absorbing is still so deeply baked in that people barely notice it happening.

And maybe what gets me is not only the labour of mothering, but how often mothers are left alone inside that labour unless they package it in a way that is easy for others to receive.

I keep coming back to nature as a reference.

Not every season is a flowering one. Some seasons strip things back. Some ask for endurance. Some are wet and wild and muddy. Some are dry, brittle, quiet, spare. There are seasons of growth, yes, but also seasons of dormancy, compost, shedding, and survival. Nature does not rush to pathologise a hard season. It does not panic when things look bare. It does not insist on bloom all year round.

Mothering has seasons like this too.

There are times that are expansive and easeful, and there are times that ask everything of you. Times when your body feels like a bridge everyone is crossing. Times when the nervous system is simply carrying more than is ideal, because that is what the season requires.

Twin mothering has been like that for me. Beautiful and breaking in equal measure. So much love, so much intensity, repetition, noise and touch and logistics and emotional holding.

Still, I do not want to speak about this only as burden, because that is not the whole story either. Two beautiful truths can exist here.

There is something profoundly meaningful in this kind of care. Something spiritual, even. Because it is so embodied. The feeding, the wiping of faces and bums, the staying close to their emotional storms. The thousand unnoticed acts that shape a home and a childhood. The way your own body becomes a place of refuge, regulation, repair.

That too is sacred to me.

That too feels like practice.

Perhaps that is what I mean when I say mothering can be devotional. Not that it should consume us without question.

And perhaps part of the devotion is also telling the truth.

Telling the truth when it is hard or we are tired. Vulnerability.

I think there is maturity in being able to stay with someone else’s discomfort without trying to remove it. There is wisdom in not rushing to fix. There is care in trusting that a mother knows her own life, has likely considered the obvious options, and may not be looking for a better strategy but for a bit of company in the reality of what she is carrying.

Sometimes the most regulating thing is not advice. It is being with.

Maybe that is part of what mothers need more of.