Competition, Jealousy and Insecurity between Mothers

In this video I share my experience in comparing myself to other mothers and getting stuck in bouncing up and down in lifting myself up and breaking down. I explore why jealousy and competition thrive when we are actually inherently insecure about ourselves and the responsibility we carry. What have your experiences been with dynamics among mothers?

Transcript:

Hi everyone, the topic I wanted to explore for today is that of competition jealousy and insecurity between mothers and on an individual level. One of the social situations I dreaded a lot initially and when I just became a mother was being with other mothers. For me it was so easy to slip into comparison look at what they are doing, look at what I am doing, what am I doing wrong, what am i doing right - what are they doing wrong, what are they doing the rights... and I find myself inthis constant like ping-pong ball game of feeling really good about myself -- feeling really shitty about myself. But then I'm being able to feel really shitty about another mother which in turn made me feel really good about myself.

And one day I was looking at this because you know I'd spend a couple of hours out with other where there was other mothers around and like I just got a headache of this constant analyzing going on in my head. And then that night I looked at okay why is it that I feel such a huge need to compare myself with other mothers? And when I opened it up for myself, I first of all saw that I was competing with my own mother. With the mothers that have come before me where you know a lot of people don't particularly like their parents you know, everyone, most people have gone through experiences with their own parents where they very much disagree with how things were done. You know, everyone's got their own emotional traumas scars that you went through as a child where you said "I'm gonna do things differently" . But regardless of how much you like or don't like your parents -- in my case it was more coming from a dislike, a competition of wanting to prove my parents wrong especially my mother -- it came from... it's like you don't like your mother or your parents or what they did to you but yet at the same time here you are you know. And whatever they did right or wrong -- it did however got you to where you are now. Where you know assuming kind of standardized scenario where you are now an adult and you are financially stable because you have a child and you are able to take care of yourself and
your child. So in terms of having prepped you and primed you for a survival, from
that perspective, like they [your parents] achieved their goal -- and so did all the mothers
behind your own mother because otherwise you know she wouldn't have been there.

So that was like a very strange point in a way because you know I was always consciously aware of competing with other mothers around me but when I actually looked inside myself I saw competition with my own mother and my own say 'ancestral lineage of mothers' where on the one hand you want to prove them wrong but then also on the other hand I fascinatingly enough make them proud and show that you can really take care of a child properly and nurture and raise them to be a whole well-rounded individual. It's kind of like this love-hate relationship of wanting to prove them wrong yet not wanting to disappoint them and ... more disappointing in terms of that weird unconscious survival tendency of making sure that your blood lineage you know continues to procreate. And for that to be in place you need to have certain survival skills and conditions in place.

Sso that is one point I found, because you know being a mother and being responsible for a child, of the well-being of another person who when they are small they're not capable to do that for themselves and they are wholly dependent on you and trust you completely to cater for them.

It's a huge responsibility and with that huge responsibility also the huge fear comes up. I think alot of us it's like we have a love-hate relationship with ourselves as well as like on the one hand we like ourselves or certain attributes character skills sides of us that we really enjoy and we are proud of who we are in those regards, but then other aspects other levels we noticed some weaknesses and things we don't like about ourselves and that we need to work on and then what happens when you're you know when you put all these different mothers together who are all going through that on some level or another it's like just this like room of friction as everyone is insecure inherently I would say. And then constantly trying to reassure themselves that they're actually doing okay so you get this constant of like 'oh my god I'm the worst mom', 'No look I'm such a good mom cause look at what I'm doing' and then another tendency I found within myself was to not be happy for other mothers when they had certain successes and triumphs and when they would go through certain experiences that were you know, not so desirable -- I would actually secretly feel happy because at least it's not me . Like' whatever is a negative score for them is kind of good for me because at least I'm not doing that'. I think it is weird like competition dynamics that start to unfold...

From my experience moms can be like the most supportive people you have ever known because they have gone through that depth of care and what is involved in raising another being or several beings, you know if you have lots of children or twins I mean it's like, respect man. On the other hand mothers can also be the most destructive nasty bitches . I experienced that inside myself as well towards myself and towards other mothers I won't necessarily say it but the experience was there and it's like I think we should all just accept that yes what we are doing is a huge responsibility. Yes, no one has the answer because we're not perfect and the world is not perfect... We are a product of the world as much as the world is a product of us and if you look at the state of the world it's not great, it's not optimal. We're not great, we're not optimal let's not try and compete about that fact you know.

Let's come together support each other, acknowledge your own triumphs, your own successes without gloating about it, without making it something more and putting other mothers down. When you go through your failures, your trials, your challenges: acknowledged what happened, that it didn't go great, but don't put yourself down for it or start putting other mothers down when they are going through their own struggles.

It's like we add this emotional value to either a success or failure you know that makes it so much more than what it is and we we don't look so much at how we can improve ourselves and our relationship with our children as just wanting to balance how we feel about ourselves and using other people to do that.

So that's something I've personally been working on a lot since I became a mom is to always make it sure that this is about me my relationship with myself and my relationship with my son and if I can learn from other people great let me do that. Instead of you know judging myself or judging other parents or trying to find little mistakes to show that know I am the best parent I know what I'm doing "that is why I have the permission to carry out the procreation of my blood lineage" you know there's like this weird unconscious programming.

So yeah if you have any comments or experiences in relation to that that's just something I wanted to share for myself like I think moms could really be great support for another and I had already experienced this but we can also be so mean let's support each other instead of breaking each other down to not minimize it when we make a mistake or someone else makes a mistake be honest about what you see don't make it more or less.

Alright, thank you for watching - bye!