Motherhood is hard. Let’s be honest.

18 months ago, I took my baby girl (9) to hospital for dental surgery. It was out of absolute necessity, a last resort. We had spent a good year trying to encourage her to sit in a dentist chair, let alone open her mouth, after a traumatic prior experience.

As a mum, it was one of the hardest single things I have had to do so far.

I had to fight a terrified girl to get out of the car, sit with her for 6 hours whilst we waited to go in, unable to eat or drink all day, forcing a hospital gown on her, sitting with her whilst being wheeled down to surgery, holding her hands down as she fought against the mask, calming her as she woke with a painful needle in her arm, trying to encourage her to eat so we could go home. These are things I will never forget and I carry a degree of guilt at putting her through that trauma, even though it was the kindest choice.

And I remember thinking to myself, "just imagine if you were doing this regularly or daily, imagine how a mama feels watching their baby suffer a lifelong condition or terminal condition.....how hard must it be for them!"

It's like I thought that "hard" had different levels. Now, I am so very grateful that I have not had to endure this level of pain and hardship, and in no way do I wish to diminish the strength, bravery and love that these families display.

But my point is this. Hard is hard. Hard is hard. Just because my hard is different to yours, doesn't make it any less hard.

My hard might be raising 4 children, (it is!) whereas yours might be raising 1. My hard might involve juggling homework, autism and perfectionism. Yours might be long work hours, disabilities, loneliness or regret. It does not matter. If it feels hard to you, then it is hard.

Our hard should not be an exercise in comparison or guilt, even though I know we are prone to do that. (Mum's are good at this.) Your hard is valid, acceptable and perfectly ok. And so is mine. We should spend less time judging what we perceive to be someone's circumstances and much more time accepting, encouraging and validating each other.

God made us all unique, so naturally we all have different strengths and weaknesses, things we breeze through and things we battle through.

So this is what I think. If you are feeling like life, work, family, faith, friendship, anything at all is hard; that's ok. Because it is hard. Yours, mine, theirs, everyone's hard is hard.

What is hard to me, may be simple and easy for you and vice versa. Certainly, we all need to hear that finding different “things” hard is normal and acceptable and your idea/sense of what is hard for you is both normal and acceptable. Your feelings around what is hard and how you deal with or manage them are valid. Motherhood is hard enough! We need to promote more kindness and understanding and engage in far less comparison and judgement.

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