Honest Motherhood (With Libby Ward) #99

This conversation on honest motherhood explains why so many parents feel like they’re disappearing—and what actually helps.

If you’ve ever snapped at your kids, felt crushed by the mental load, or wondered why parenting feels so much harder than everyone else makes it look, this episode with Libby Ward (Diary of an Honest Mom) will hit deeply. We talk about people-pleasing, perfectionism, emotional regulation, childhood trauma, mom guilt, resentment, and the invisible pressure many parents carry every day. Most importantly, we unpack how self-abandonment quietly fuels burnout—and why meeting your own needs is not selfish parenting.

What You’ll Learn:
• Why overwhelmed moms often feel angry, resentful, or emotionally exhausted
• The hidden connection between people-pleasing, burnout, and parenting triggers
• How childhood experiences shape the way we respond to stress, tantrums, and emotional overwhelm
• Why “being a good parent” doesn’t mean ignoring your own needs
• Practical mindset shifts that reduce shame, power struggles, and emotional reactivity

This episode is grounded in developmental psychology, nervous system science, and the real emotional realities of parenting young kids. No perfect-parent messaging. No guilt. Just honest conversations that help parents understand what’s happening beneath the behavior—both in their kids and in themselves.

If you’re tired of second-guessing yourself, carrying the entire mental load, or feeling like you’re failing during hard moments, this channel is here to help parenting feel calmer, clearer, and more manageable—one small shift at a time.

Libby Ward’s book “Honest Motherhood”

Transcript

Welcome And Why Honesty Matters

Jon @WholeParent 0:01

Welcome to the Whole Parent Podcast. Today I have a really special treat for you. It is Libby Ward, who is the writer, speaker, and creator of Diary of an Honest Mom. And her new book, talking about her new book, Honest Motherhood. Her work explores this kind of like emotional reality that motherhood has for women, especially in the modern world. And that includes the good stuff, right? The beauty of it, but also the truth stuff, the honest part, the overwhelm, the resentment, the mental load, the cycle breaking, the pressure that so many of us feel to hold everything together while inside we're actually falling apart. We talk about religion in this episode, we talk about like her journey. It's a really, really cool episode. And really it centers around this idea of like what happens when motherhood collides with perfectionism and unresolved trauma and a culture, whatever aspect of that culture you're a part of, that constantly asks women to endlessly sacrifice without ever asking them if they're okay, like actually kind of forcing them to pretend that they are. So I'm excited for you to hear this conversation that I had with Libby. It was such a treat, such a joy to have. And so without further ado, let's get into it.

The Hard Parts We Never Say

Jon @WholeParent 1:39

I'm good. Thanks for having me. So I have been digging into your book. I haven't had a chance to read it every single word yet. But, you know, one of the things that that sticks out to me is, I this sounds cheesy, but the honesty. In honest motherhood, you talk a lot about honesty. What is the part of motherhood that you sort of learned before all of this, all of your work, all of your platform? What was that thing that was like that part of motherhood that you learned that you weren't allowed to say out loud? Like what was that thing that you were told that you weren't allowed to say?

SPEAKER_00 2:17

I don't think anyone ever told me we don't talk about this. It was sort of just infused into my being around the people that I spent time around. And when I looked out to the world, it just looked like everybody else was loving it. It was sunshine and rainbows and joy and delight and giggles. And maybe you just didn't sleep that much sometimes, but mostly it was just great. And I feel like the lack of, for a better word, honesty, or the lack of discussing the hard parts out loud just sort of showed me, well, we don't don't talk about it. And I mean, I will say I was someone who just carried a lot of shame in general. Like I entered motherhood with this idea that everybody else knew what they were doing and I didn't. And, you know, I grew up in, you know, a difficult, I had a difficult home life and sort of just entered motherhood with this idea that I should be like everyone else because they probably know better than me. And if I'm having a hard time, that probably means there's something wrong with me. So I'll just stay quiet about it because it's too shameful to say it out loud.

Jon @WholeParent 3:18

You said like I should just be the the the voice inside of you is saying I should just be like everyone else. What what what in your mind was everyone else doing? What what did their life look like that your

Childhood Chaos And Chasing Normal

Jon @WholeParent 3:30

life was missing?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Yeah, so I so I feel like to answer this question, I kind of have to go back to my childhood a little bit. Uh I was raised by a mom, a single mom, who had undiagnosed, untreated mental health disorders. And we moved like 18 times before I was 18 years old. We struggled with money. Uh, she struggled to hold on a job. We weren't really a part of any communities or or anything like that. So there was a lot of turbulence at home. There was a lot of dysregulation, not that I knew that word at the time, you know, there was a lot of chaos and anger and unpredictability. And also our house was just messy and I was embarrassed about that. And I just wasn't taught a lot about the world and myself and how life works. I was responsible from a lot from a young age, and I never really like figured out who I was or felt like I didn't know what normal people lived like. And by normal people, probably I was picturing like that typical middle class family who, like, you know, they maybe had a house and a car. Like, you know, we didn't have a car until I was 12 years old. And, you know, maybe their parents both had jobs, or, you know, they sat around the table to eat dinner. Like, I didn't have any of those experiences. Like, we didn't really eat around a table. We didn't really uh, you know, go into social environments. And and so when I entered adulthood, it was kind of this feast of, okay, how is everybody else doing it? I was uh introduced to a youth group to a church when I was in my late teens, and that really became a place where I found a lot of belonging and a lot of safety and predictability. And I I really looked to the women at my church for like, okay, what does love look like and what does servitude look like? And what is how helpful is it to have structure and rules and boundaries? And I loved those things because they gave me a sense of security and safety. And so when I became a mom at 26 years old, at the time, in my subculture, that was old for having kids. You know, now I know lots of people who like they don't have kids until they're in their 30s, but I, you know, the women around me had a lot of kids, they had them young. And what normal looked like was they matched every Sunday and they brought warm shortbread with them and they, you know, cooked home cooked meals and they were very intentional about their mothering and they seemed patient and loving and kind and full of joy, and it like motherhood was like the ultimate calling. And I remember talking to them about like, how do you get time, you know, for yourself, you know, with kids, and they'd be like, Oh, I don't need to, like, my kids are my whole world. And they genuinely seemed so happy. And not just that, it's just their houses were perfectly put together and they looked perfectly put together. And so I thought, like, that's what I want. You know, I I grew up thinking that I was sort of like dragged along. And at the time, I would have said that my mom was self-ish. And so when I was surrounded by women who really prioritized being selfless, I thought, well, then that must be the right way. And so rather than pick one or two and go, oh, I think I'm gonna do it like them. I sort of looked at them all. I looked at the baking mom and the Pinterest mom and the matching clothes mom and the Christmas card invitation mom and you know, from scratch, and I was like, I'll do all of them. I'll just that's realistic. I'll just be like all of you guys. And so I tried to look for the most quote unquote normal thing everyone did and did that because I didn't know where the line of healthy was. And I just wanted to be a good mom.

Jon @WholeParent 6:48

I don't know how much you get into this, but how much do you think that this kind of perfectionist mindset is formed by our subcultures? Because when I think about like when you find belonging in a church or in any religious institution, that th that's often the place, maybe this is controversial to say, where people are presenting the most curated version of themselves. And so how much do you think that that had to do with it, where it was because it was that group that that really was lending itself to that?

SPEAKER_00 7:22

I think that it's both. And that's what I really talk about in my book. I've gone through different stages where it was really I blamed myself, or I thought it was all an internal thing. And then I've gone through stages where I was like, oh, it's all society, it's all the church, it's all this external. I think it's really both. The church and certainly not just the church, but religious institutions or society at large, they definitely there is this expectation that we check all the boxes, and we do live in a world where comparison is ripe. We have access to how everybody else is living their lives, and

Church Culture And The Curated Mom

SPEAKER_00 7:55

that is true. And it is true that specifically in church environments, we are presenting our best. And so that would have contributed to okay, well, I guess that's what normal looks like. But also I was a person who did never learn to trust myself, never learned to trust my intuition, didn't have a sense of what normal was. And so I think I was more susceptible to trying to be like what the women and the mothers and the church people around me were like because I didn't have a like, okay, well, this is what my family does, and I kind of like this, or I trust myself. I was very susceptible to what everybody else was doing because of my own trauma and my own lack of self-worth, self-trust, all of that. So I think both of both things are true. And I'm pretty sure that if I had had more experiences with different types of women and mothers and families, I probably wouldn't have struggled as much, but because I was so latched on, I say in the book, like a leech. Like I just like suctioned onto them, like, okay, they must know the right way. Like everything they really look like they have it all together. And I didn't have a lot of experience with other ways of doing it, they were the ones I looked to. And so I think it was kind of just a trifecta for me of no trust in myself, no self-worth, and uh latching onto them from a young age and not really looking other other places.

Jon @WholeParent 9:18

How much do you think that that comes from? You we hear these quotes all the time about like are your your parents' voice becomes your inner voice, right? And things like that nature. When you were feeling like you just kind of were directionless or like you didn't know who you were, and then it became easy for you to get caught up in those things, how much do you think that that has to do with your childhood? Or do you think that that's something completely different?

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Yeah, I think it has a lot to do with my childhood and with the experiences that I had growing up and being able to feel safe at home or safe feeling emotions. And so because I didn't feel safe to have emotions or to acknowledge my own needs, I became more attuned to what everybody else's needs were. And so that's what I really get into in the book is, you know, I entered motherhood with this, let's do everything for everyone and try to tick all these boxes. And that's what my version of perfect was. My version of perfect was like, make the meals from scratch, don't give them screen time, don't give them sugar, don't yell at them, you know, be loving, be patient, be kind, you know, do all of those things. It had absolutely nothing to do with learning to listen to my own needs. Like those things were that wasn't even something that entered my brain. And it wasn't until I really broke later on and like went on the deep dive in therapy and reading all the books about trauma that I realized, wait a second, this actually has everything to do with how I learned to perceive myself and the rest of the world. I've spent my whole life being attuned to the needs of others. I walk into a room and what does everybody else need? What is the emotional temperature? How can I calm it down? Like if somebody asks for something or hints that they need something, I immediately assume it's my responsibility to do that thing. And so I overextended myself and overextended myself, not just because I was a perfectionist or not just because I was trying to like tick the boxes of being a good mom, but because that's how I learned to stay safe. And that's how I learned to stay connected to the people I loved most and stay, and that's how I learned to feel like I belonged was to keep everybody else happy. And it only that only stopped working when the load of motherhood became too heavy. I was great at it before motherhood. I was great at it with my first child. I was like, you know, nursing my baby in my wrap, cleaning the house with like muffins baking in the oven. And I was just nailing, I was nailing all the things that I thought, you know, made me a good mom. And I could be patient and I could speak with kindness and all of that. But it wasn't until the load of having two kids and carrying the mental load and also, you know, being married to a shift worker who wasn't there and not having, you know, parents to support me and having to support them and having a child who had extra needs. It wasn't until the load became so heavy and my desire to attune to everybody else but myself uh caused me to break. And then I had to figure out, oh wait, you never actually knew yourself to begin with.

Trauma, Self Trust, And Susceptibility

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Uh, and maybe you should learn to listen to your own needs.

Jon @WholeParent 12:08

Yeah, that's that's actually one of my favorite parts about what you're talking about in the book, and it's the people pleasing, but and I think lots of lots of people who have written books about parenting talk about people pleasing because it's something that we don't want for our kids that we often experience ourselves. But I think the way that you draw it to this idea of self-abandonment that like that you yourself, the the abandoning of yourself is what causes that people-pleasing tendency. Yeah. I think that's what you're saying here.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Yeah.

Jon @WholeParent 12:41

Can you speak to that a little bit more?

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Yeah, I mean, I as a young person, I learned to self-abandon in order to keep my mom or my stepdad or or whoever happy. And I did that so often for so long that my own needs, my own self didn't even like come into question. I just was focused on what everybody else needed. And I uh, you know, I I looked to the the selfless moms and thought, well, that's that's that's the way to do it. And yet by self-abandoning, by being selfless, that is exactly what burnt me out, you know, by trying to keep, you know, the moms at preschool happy and the moms on the internet happy and the moms at church happy and my mom happy and my kids happy and, you know, even my husband, you know, my husband is so supportive and so kind and has always been a partner in parenting our children. And yet I would center him in everything and his needs in everything. Where I would say, Oh, well, he's a shift worker, so he has to sleep because he needs, he's got to fight crime during the day, you know, he's a police officer and his job's important, he's got to sleep. Or, you know, he would say, like, don't worry about me. Like, if the kids are being noisy, don't worry about it. I have earplugs. And but I would still, I would be a stress ball because I'd want to make sure he slept. Or I wouldn't, you know, wake him up in the night to watch the kids. I would do it because, you know, he, you know, he had to work, even though I also had to work, or I also had to watch the kids. And so there's these different examples in my life that I can look back on, whether it's in friendships or my marriage or with my mom, where people wouldn't even have to say, meet my need first. I would just automatically prioritize them, overextend myself, and then also have resentment at the same time. And so that's also what I get into the into in the book, is it really started as like this overextension of myself, then resentment towards everyone in my life, and then this like internal rage. And it wasn't until I broke that I realized that in a way I had been doing it to myself. And not in a, like I never want anyone, you know, listening to this or anyone who hears me talk about this to feel bad about that when it's like, oh, we do it to ourselves. But it became a moment where I had to be so honest with myself about my own, my own tendency to self-abandon being the thing that contributed so much to my burnout. Like, yes, there's expectations from the world. Yes, there's expectations from your in-laws and your parents and you know, all these different places. But at some point, I had to be honest about the fact that I was trying to do too much. And the reason I was trying to do too much is because I was trying to stay safe and I was trying to stay connected and I didn't want to lose anyone and I didn't want to feel judged and I didn't want to feel like I didn't belong. And that is why it didn't ever occur to me to say no, or that's why it didn't occur to me to do a less good job at cleaning the house. Um, because you know, I'd say, Oh, I don't have time to take care of myself. Well, I eventually realized, well, if you do a worse job at cleaning your house, you get you get more time. If you say no to volunteering for that thing, you get more time. And when you have more time, you have more capacity. When you have more capacity, you can listen to your needs and you can respond to your kids better. But if you're constantly in a state of self-abandonment and like keep everybody get happy, do all those things, you can't do that. It does feel impossible and it does feel like you literally have no time.

Jon @WholeParent 15:59

How do you balance that experience? And I want to I want to get after we take a break here in a minute, I I I want to get into what you when you keep saying when I broke, and I want to kind of dig dig into

Self Abandonment Leads To Resentment

Jon @WholeParent 16:10

that. But how do you balance that that kind of tension between a lot of these things sound like they're societal pressures, they're pressures from dare I say, patriarchy, dare I say uh Christian moral you know, worldview, I don't know it was an evangelical Christian world more worldview, but it seems it it's reflective. I I hear the some of the some of the uh dog whistles in the midst of what you're saying, it's like kind of evangelical Christian worldview about submission and about martyrdom. Yeah, martyrdom and self-sacrifice. How much how do you balance that side where these are things happening external to you with the the power that comes from acknowledging that you have agency and that you're not just a victim? How do you balance that?

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Oh, that's a great question. How do you balance it? I balance it by being radically honest about the fact that so many things can be true at the same time. And having to continuously remind myself of that, that there's oh like there's always going to be external pressures, and for some of us, more than others. Some of us are more susceptible than other people. I, like I said, I I was someone who just like wanted to be told what to do and wanted that structure and wanted those boundaries and wanted to be a selfless mom. Uh, I had to be honest eventually about the fact that yes, Christian patriarchy is real. Yes, there is this messaging coming through social media, coming through our churches, coming through from, I mean, I'm Canadian, but your government, um, that says that as women, we do need to be subservient and submissive and selfless and prioritize everybody else and put everybody else first and that our needs don't matter. And it's reflected in your social structures with like no maternity leave, you know, no social care, things like that. There is so many messages coming from everywhere that basically tell women and mothers in particular you are not porton, you're not important, you are not valuable, your time is not as valuable as, you know, your husband's or dads, or your energy is not valuable. And what you do for your kids, you know, you have to give everything to your children, but also we're not going to acknowledge that that takes a lot from you. You know, we're living in a social media age where we get more information at a velocity that no other parenting generation has ever had. And yeah, the research is helpful. There is good things that come from the age of information, but it's just constant. And it's from sometimes great people with great intentions and sometimes not very great people with not great intentions, and you know, grifters and or even people who just think don't understand your life. And it's so true that the church and patriarchy and the government and social media and your in-laws and the world has all these expectations and tries to tell you that your job is to just, you know, die to self and you know, put everybody else first. And also, I have to acknowledge my own desire for feeling belonging and my own role in taking their word over my own, and taking their expectations over my own, in taking their needs over my own. I I really didn't ever really listen to what I needed because I was so afraid of what other people thought. And and both of those things can be true, that the society makes it harder to be a parent, to be a mother, to be a woman, to be, you know, fill in the blank. And also, we're not just victims to that. Like we have the ability to say no. And maybe that comes with disappointing people. It definitely comes with disappointing

Patriarchy, Pressure, And Personal Agency

SPEAKER_00 20:05

people. Maybe that comes with people being confused. Maybe that comes with having to let people misunderstand you. And that's just about the hardest part is it's not choosing to be different. Sure, choosing to be different, there is difficulty in changing your ways and not being a people pleaser and setting boundaries, but it's in proving to yourself that you will survive other people not liking you or not understanding you or being disappointed in you, and realizing that on the other side of other people's disappointment is being a more whole person, is being a more whole present parent. And sometimes it's worth disappointing, it's always worth disappointing other people when the result is your own well-being and your ability to parent your kids from a place of wholeness.

Jon @WholeParent 20:52

Do you think it's possible to this book is about healing trauma? Do you think it's possible to get to that place of being a whole-hearted person or a whole human? A whole parent, dare I say. Is it possible to get to those places if you don't if we don't opt out of those environments?

SPEAKER_00 24:49

The social media environments, any of them?

Jon @WholeParent 24:51

I don't know. I don't know. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Is it possible to get to a place? I don't think it's a I don't think it's possible to be your most authentic self while still prioritizing what the world says over what your inner voice is telling you. Um I don't know that we can ever achieve absolute wholeness. You know, I think it's constantly a j a journey. But I I think you can see we're always going to be in these environments that are giving us messages. About how to be and what to be. We can be more whole by being our authentic selves, but we we can't be whole while still listening to everybody else before we listen to ourselves. I don't know how that answers your question.

Jon @WholeParent 25:45

Let's take a quick break and we will be back in a minute. I am back with Libby Ward, the author of the amazing new book, Honest Motherhood. And we are talking about being a more more whole person, a more whole parent, and recovering from our trauma. Libby, I wanted to ask you when you became a mother, what parts of your childhood bubbled back up to the surface? Maybe not with the first one, but certainly as that load began to greater get heavier for you.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

What parts bubble back up? I would say the parts that bubbled back up the most were the moments where I didn't feel seen. Like the moments where my needs or my emotions or my experiences were not seen as valid and real. It made me eventually realize that I no longer trusted my own experiences or my own feelings about things. You know, I remember, you know, when my daughter came home from school the first time, she was kind of bullied a little bit. And she was telling me about what happened and how it made her feel. And I said to her, I'm really sorry that happened. You know, that, you know, that must make you feel sad. And just so you know, you know, you're always loved and those things aren't true. And I told her all the true things about her. And we shared a hug and we went for ice cream and I listened to her. And as we were driving home, I had so many feelings come up at the same time. One being that I was proud of myself for showing up for my daughter, and that I was happy that she felt safe enough to share her feelings and emotions with me. Uh, you know, two, that she did seem to be feeling better and that I had done my job. And then also this feeling of what I would have given to have been met with the same empathy that I was giving, you know, my daughter and not a comparison. You know, I remember, you know, as when I was a kid, oh well, when I was a kid, you know, XYZ happened, or you think you have it bad, or, you know, all these invalidating things that our parents, you know, for whatever reason said or or did, you know, they come back up. And there was such that was just one of many moments where I had this duality of being happy that I was able to show up differently and also grieving that, oh, wait a second, what difference would it have made for someone to show up for me in that way? And then the other side of that, I guess I would say, is in a less explicit way, the rage that I felt mirrored my own mother's rage in a way that just doused me with shame. Where I entered motherhood and thought, I am not gonna be an angry mom, I am not gonna yell, I am not going to punish my kids for having feelings, I am gonna let them have feelings at the same time that I have feelings, and I am going to model what being a good human is by being a good human. And I thought that love and good intentions would be enough to make me that kind of mom. And it turned out when I was trying to carry the weight of the world and wasn't capable of saying no and constantly prioritized everyone over myself and had sleep deprivation and unmet needs, unmet needs for so long that I did not have the capacity to be the mom that I wanted to be. And I did blow up and

Needs, Bullying, And Old Wounds

SPEAKER_00 29:32

I did yell. And, you know, we had said before we went on break that I could maybe share a little bit about that. There's a story that I share in my book called Granola Bars, where it was, you know, a particularly stressful morning. My husband had, you know, he was sleeping in because he had worked all night and I had to get the kids to daycare and school. They were three and five. I had to get to work. And, you know, one of those typical chaotic mornings with kids where one peeves the bed and the toddler needs something, and I can't figure out what he's saying, and he slaps me in the face, and I don't slap him back, but I feel the rage like building in me, and they refuse breakfast. And I give them a good roll of bar and we get in the car and we're driving. And I say, just give mommy a minute. I have to make a phone call because I had to call a babysitter to watch them after school. And so, of course, I make the phone call and they start crying and kicking my seat and needing things, and I can just feel the rage just bubbling and bubbling and bubbling. And what I normally was good at, which was stifling the rage and keeping it in, uh, just stopped that day. And I slammed on the brakes and I turned around and I screamed in their faces, and I saw a fear in their eyes that I had only ever seen for people and things that weren't me before. And when I saw that the fear they felt was of me, that was a really big wake-up call. Like, oh no, they are afraid of you, and this is not how I want to parent my kids. And that was really a breaking point for me to realize that I had become, I felt at the time like I had become everything I didn't want to become, and I had to learn how not to do that anymore. And so there was ways in my parenthood where I both showed up in a way that I was proud of, that I hadn't been shown up for when I was a kid. And then there was also ways where I heard my mother come out of my mouth and thought, how do I stop doing this?

Jon @WholeParent 31:19

Is that the moment where you was that the big shift moment for you? Like what were you feeling specifically? I know you said rage, but before you slammed on the brakes, like what there were so many things going through my head.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

And as I wrote this story and looked back, I realized that it was so much more than just overstimulation. I wasn't just overwhelmed. I wasn't just overstimulated. I was resentful that my husband was still sleeping. I was embarrassed that I was gonna be late for work. I was ashamed that I couldn't get my act together. I was worried that my son might never speak. You know, he was three years old and still not able to speak. And I was burned out from going to work and going to school and being the primary parent and also taking care of both of my parents who were separated and disabled and not able to drive. And I was angry at them for everything they were and everything they weren't. So when I look back on it, I realized that it wasn't just one moment. It wasn't just that I was overwhelmed in the moment, it wasn't that my kids were being quote unquote bad. It was an accumulation of so many different ways that I had completely self-abandoned. Yes, the load of motherhood was hard, and also I had self-abandoned to a point where I gave myself just no capacity whatsoever. And um the reason I call the stories granola bars is because once I yelled at them and apologized, my son handed me the granola bar that I had given him when they got in the car, and it was all crinkled, and he signed open to me. And I realized that the reason they were both getting upset is because they were

The Granola Bars Breaking Point

SPEAKER_00 33:02

trying to get my attention to open his granola bar wrapper so we could have breakfast. And there was just something about that moment that I don't know, I feel like every parent, maybe we don't remember every time we've yelled at our kids or every time we do something we're not proud of, but that is the moment that I just will never forget the fear on their faces and the shame that I felt. It was mostly shame once I erupted, but all the feelings beforehand was like this tornado of like resentment and rage and shame and guilt and fear and embarrassment and and all of the things that I didn't know how to name at the time. But now I look back on and I'm like, well, of course, of course, you're a basket case.

Jon @WholeParent 33:42

That's such a hard moment when you're when your kids reflect to you the person who you are trying not to be. And then it's something I and I've had that moment where it's that oh, you just wanted my help. You're screaming my name, yeah, and kids scream our names nonstop. But you know, once in a while it's just like because I'm hungry, because I need you to open. And I imagine in that moment you probably feel like I love my kids. Never does that change, right? But I don't love my life in this moment.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Right. And I was just desperate for a break, you know, looking back. I was desperate to have five minutes in a day where I could think my own thoughts, desperate to not feel like a failure every night when I went to bed and replayed everything I said and did, and every, you know, short response or every, you know, unfolded basket of laundry, or, you know, I was I was desperate to feel like a person. And that's what I talk about in my book is like I think a lot of us as parents and and mothers, we enter motherhood, and it feels sometimes like our personhood is gone and you just become someone who meets everybody else's needs.

Jon @WholeParent 35:03

And what what would you say to that person who just heard that sentence? I feel like I'm disappearing. I feel like all I do is meet other people's needs. Yeah. What do you want to say to that mom?

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Um, I would want to say to them that you absolutely are a person who has the same needs as every other human being on the face of the earth. And becoming a parent doesn't mean that those needs disappeared. And actually, by meeting those needs, that is going to make you more of the parent that you want to be. And not just that, I feel like I started this journey towards healing to be a better parent for my kids. And in the end, I realized I should have always been my own reason. And that that is the lesson is that whether we had our needs met as kids and learned to self-abandon, or whether parenthood made us feel like we lost ourselves, whatever the reason is that we end up serving everybody else's needs and not thinking of our own, there is always a chance for you to stop and say, No, actually, I am a person and I deserve to have my needs met simply because I am a person and I deserve all the good things that I know in my bones that my kids deserve too.

Jon @WholeParent 36:15

And that's what I would say. That's what you would say.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

That they deserve you deserve good things, you deserve to have your needs met, you deserve joy, you deserve to be present for the life that you've worked so hard to build. Like you deserve to be fully present, fully there, a whole person because you would easily say that that's what your kids deserve too, now and in 20, 30, 40, 50 years. So why is it so easy to believe for your kids and so hard to believe and live as though that is the truth for ourselves? Yeah.

Jon @WholeParent 36:48

To give them to give yourself the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

The same grace and the same permission to listen to your needs and meet them. Because you're the only one that can do that. You know, I say this to people all the time: you are the only expert in your own life. Everyone else is gonna have an opinion for you on how to parent, on what to do, what information to live by. You know, to there's so much information. You are the only person with the information about how much you slept last night and how deep your pocketbooks are, and what your value system is, and what your support system is like, and what your partner is like, and the needs of your children, and your own neurodivergence, or your own chronic illness, or your own needs. You are the only person with all of that information. And so, sure, listen to experts, but listen to yourself, listen to your own needs, be honest about your own needs because you're the only one who can decide what you can let go of in order to get those needs met and still be the parent that you want to be. You're the only expert in your own life. So be honest about that.

Jon @WholeParent 37:52

What I'm hearing you say is that one of the greatest gifts that we can give our kids, or maybe the only way that we can be a fully present, and and I'm gonna use words

Meeting Your Needs To Parent Better

Jon @WholeParent 38:02

air quotes for those just listening, good mother, right? The good mother that we want to be. The only way that we can be that good mother is by taking impeccable care first of ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Absolutely. And modeling that for our children.

Jon @WholeParent 38:17

And there's an And there's a there I want to just uh with our remaining seconds, a couple minutes here. What does honesty have to do with that? Because you call this book honest motherhood. Yeah. And we've talked a lot about it. It has everything. Why is that weird? It has everything to do with it.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Because I lived for so long as though everybody else knew the truth about what I needed. And sure, like people know me as Dari of an Honest Mom because that's how you know my handle came to be. And I'm honest on the internet about motherhood. But really, what this book about is my absolute requirement to be honest with myself in order to figure out what I need to be the most whole version of myself. And that is what I hope that mothers and fathers and parents everywhere can do is be honest with yourself about the fact that you're a human being with the same needs as everybody else, and the fact that you have the information and you have the authority to choose what you are going to do with your one and wild and precious life and what you're gonna let go of so that you can meet your own needs and be the whole person that you deserve to be. And honesty is the first step towards any of that telling yourself the truth about how much you matter and what you need.

Jon @WholeParent 39:38

If you could say one thing to the people who are not gonna read your book, but you still want them to get something out of this conversation, you still want them to hear something from you. They can't ever not everybody can read every book, but I recommend that everybody read this one. It's really good. I love it. I feel like it even as a non-mother, I feel like it helped me understand my wife better. You know, it's worth it's worth the read, regardless of even to understand your own mother, right? Um, but what what for for those people who might not read the book? What's that one thing?

SPEAKER_00 40:13

I would say that selfless and selfish are not the only options, and that you have the ability to make changes to make your life and your parenthood better, and to start by telling yourself the truth. Because you deserve it.

Jon @WholeParent 40:30

Libby Ward. Thank you. Thank you so much for being on the Whole Parent Podcast. You can find Libby at the Diary of an Honest Mom on all of the social media channels. You can check out her book, it's at the link in the description. Honest Motherhood found wherever books are sold. Any other ways that we can connect online on the internet in my book?

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Yeah, I'll see you there.

Jon @WholeParent 41:02

Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Whole Parent podcast. I hope it was worth the time that you gave it today. I hope you learned something, or were challenged, or maybe it just made you smile. If it did, there's a couple of things that you can do that would really, really help me out. The first one is to go right now and subscribe to my channel at Whole Parent on YouTube. YouTube is getting full, unabridged versions of every podcast episode ad-free right now. I am really trying to get people over

Honesty As The First Step

Jon @WholeParent 41:32

there because I have so much awesome YouTube content planned and I have such a small following over there. So if you want to get the best of Whole Parent, hop over to YouTube. There's awesome stuff there. It's going to absolutely change your life. The second thing that you can do is actually go to the link in the description. You can find YouTube there as well, but find the link for the Parent Lab. It's my exclusive community where I do group coaching. I have a whole course library there full of amazing educational resources for parents. It is a subscription model where you gain access for a low monthly fee. Go ahead, check out the Parent Lab. There are so many amazing things in the Parent Lab. And if you want to grow in your parenting, it's the best way to do that. The third thing that you can do, and it probably costs you the most because it costs you vulnerability, is to share this episode or this podcast in general with people in your life. There are parents in your life who are struggling. There are parents in your life who could use this in their life. And we know that the number one way that we can get more people to listen and watch and follow along with the podcast is by personal referral. People want to know what you're listening to. They want to know what's helping you to parent more effectively. And so if you can do that, find somebody in your life who needs this podcast and send it to them. I would be so, so, so appreciative. Thank you again so much for your time. You can find links to everything that we talked about in the episode, including my books, Punishment Free Parenting, and Set My Feelings Free down below. And I'll see you next time.