I think I’m a great mum. Why is it so taboo to say so?

"It's controversial because a 'truly good mum' wouldn’t think she was doing a good job. A 'truly good mum' would know that there are always things she could do to improve."

In the spirit of self-deprecation - the one quality mothers are meant to possess above all else - here is a list of things I’m not good at. 

I can’t clean glass properly.

There is no chance I could assemble a piece of IKEA furniture.

If you tell me a number longer than four digits, I will remember it wrong but be absolutely convinced I have remembered it right.

I can be stubborn, and I don’t like taking criticism, and I am sometimes too quick to judge people. And I suppose, if we’re going by “number of times I’ve reversed into a pole”, I’m also not a very good driver.

I tell you all that so you don’t get the impression that I think I’m perfect. I am bad at a lot of things.  But parenting is not one of them. 

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"I am a good mum"

I am a good mum. If that sentence makes you feel uncomfortable, you’re not alone. It’s not something we ever hear women admit. Of all the things society tells women we should be insecure about - and believe me, there are a lot of them - the way that we parent our children tops the list.

I love my two sons more than anything in the world, and I believe I’m doing a great job of raising them. I think that’s the way that every mother should feel, but for some reason it seems like a controversial admission. Even, perhaps, a shameful one. Because a truly good mother wouldn’t think she was doing a good job. A truly good mother would know that there are always things she could do to improve.

A truly good mother wouldn’t have time to waste patting herself on the back for being a good mother, because her “mum guilt” would keep driving her to strive to be an even better mother. 

Before you get the wrong idea, I don’t think that I’m a uniquely good mum. I am surrounded by wonderful mothers: mums who are kind and good-humoured and well-organised, who know their kids’ favourite foods like the lyrics to their favourite songs, who never listen to their actual favourite songs anymore because their Spotify is wall-to-wall Ready Steady Wiggle.

Mums who keep it together when their children are behaving appallingly in public. Mums who spend their whole nights waking up with newborns and then their whole days ferrying around their big kids. Mums who cut sandwiches into the shape of stars and always have three types of fruit on offer.

Mums who once thought the premise of “taking a bullet” for someone was a bit over the top, but who would now die for their kids, no questions asked. 

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"We're only supposed to feel guilt"

I’m surrounded by fantastic mums, but none of them would admit it. Unbelievably, most of them still say they feel guilty about the way they parent, because in 2024, the only emotion that women are allowed to have about parenting is guilt.

If they work outside the home, they feel guilty for not being more present. If they’re stay at home parents, they feel guilty for spending time on their phones or doing housework. If they’re parents of more than one child, they feel guilty for spreading themselves too thin.

If they have an only child, they feel guilty for not giving them siblings. If they have family to lean on, they feel guilty for asking for too much help. If they don’t, they feel guilty for denying their kids a “village”. 

I’m not immune to the messaging that every choice I make as a mum is the wrong one. But somewhere along the line, I decided to just… ignore it. Because perceiving myself as a good mum, ironically, makes me a better mum. It frees me up to genuinely enjoy my time, both with and without my kids, without worrying. It means I don’t waste my time stressing over choices that are, fundamentally, all equally valid and loving ways to raise kids.

And it models the confidence and joy in parenting that I want for my own boys if they choose to have children of their own. 

Calling myself a good mum in the face of all the noise about how guilty I should feel about, well, everything, can feel like a radical act. 

But I’m going to keep doing it anyway. And if I had it my way, so would everyone else.

Originally published as I think I’m a great mum. Why is it so taboo to say so?