Welcome to The Club

My dad is a smart man.

Yes, I realize I’m opening a blog about motherhood with a story about my father. Trust the process.

He knows that when women complain, we may or may definitely not want someone to solve our problems. So when he notices a rant coming on, he asks:

“Do you want me to fix it?”

Most of the time the answer is no.

But I distinctly remember one of my yeses.

I was fed up with motherhood.

I had been a straight-A student. Overachieving. Latin as an elective. Jack of all trades. Full tuition scholarship. Super involved. Employee of the month. The “mom friend” of the friend group with the Mary Poppins bag and snacks for everyone.

Basically, I had been the perfect candidate for success my entire life.

The perfect candidate for motherhood, right?

Wrong. So wrong.

Perfect candidate for burnout, loss of identity, extreme mom guilt, and general unhappiness?

Absolutely.

You see, all those things I was known for and good at had extrinsic motivators. They had built-in reward systems. Work = result.

I could see progress. I could see outcomes.

And I thrived on that.

Enter: a newborn baby.

You changed the diaper in record time?Congrats, she already pooped in the new one.

You folded, color-coded, and perfectly finished the laundry?She just spit up on you, your husband, and the bedspread. Back to the washer.

You unloaded the dishwasher?Great! Now you can load it again.

You designed and executed the perfect bedtime routine?HA. Sleep regression has entered the chat.

In motherhood, hard work isn’t rewarded with money, promotions, praise, or even a clean house.

Hard work just gives you…more time for more hard work.

Pretty depressing, right?

So after telling my dad, “Yes, I actually do want advice this time,” he suggested something surprising.

He said that much like my potty-training two-year-old, what I needed was a good old-fashioned sticker chart.

Some gold stars so I could actually see my hard work.

And my brilliant cousin said those gold stars should be the heavenly combination of chocolate and peanut butter that a certain famous company wraps in gold foil.

So she bought me a whiteboard calendar, a bag of Reese’s, and some double-sided tape.

Every day I got to pull one off if I accomplished something.

Anything.

No matter how small.

And I wrote those accomplishments down.

And slowly I started to see something I had been missing.

Even though more effort did not mean more reward, my effort still mattered.

I was building something.

I mattered.

And I didn’t have to be perfect.

Good enough was enough for a gold star.

Then one day I looked at my notebook full of scribbled little wins and realized something.

Motherhood doesn’t need perfection.

It just needs a whole lot of good enough.

Kids fed? Gold star.

Everyone made it through the day alive? Gold star.

You kept a tiny human semi happy

while running on three hours of sleep and half a sandwich crust? Two gold stars.

And that’s when the idea for the Good Enough Mom Club was born.

A place for moms who are trying their best, lowering the bar when necessary, and celebrating the tiny wins that nobody else sees.

So if today you:

• rewashed that load of laundry you forgot about for the third time this week

• served cereal for dinner

• lost your temper but apologized

• or just made it to bedtime without anyone dying

Congratulations.

You’re doing great.

Here’s your gold star. ⭐

Welcome to the club.