The Pressure of Being Grateful: Why “I Should Be Happy” Can Make Postpartum Struggles Worse

There shouldn't be a “should” here.

I know that's not necessarily what we're taught. We're surrounded by messages that motherhood is supposed to be this beautiful, magical time, and that you should feel grateful for every moment because it goes by so quickly. You have a healthy baby. You wanted this. You should be happy.

But that's bullshit.

You can be incredibly grateful for your baby and still have a really hard time. You can love your child and still feel frustrated, overwhelmed, angry, sad, anxious, exhausted, or desperate for a break. Those feelings don't cancel out your gratitude, and they don't make you a bad mother.

In fact, putting pressure on yourself to feel happy or grateful all the time can make an already difficult transition even harder.

“But I have a healthy baby. Why am I still struggling?”

One of the first things I want postpartum women to know is that happiness is an emotion. It's something that comes and goes throughout the day. None of us are supposed to be happy all the time, whether we're parents or not.

So why would we expect that from a woman who has just had a baby?

You're recovering physically. You're dealing with hormonal changes. You're navigating a huge identity shift. You're learning how to care for a person who is completely dependent on you while you're also trying to figure out what you need yourself.

And that's before we account for everything else that might be happening in your particular life.

Maybe you're going back to work quickly. Maybe you don't have enough help. Maybe your partner isn't as involved as you expected. Maybe your pregnancy or birth was difficult or traumatic. Maybe your baby has colic or is simply a higher-needs baby. Maybe your body isn't recovering the way you hoped it would.

There are so many variables.

Even if everything is going relatively well, you can still be having a really hard time. Parenting a newborn is hard work. There is no realistic expectation that you will move through that experience feeling content and grateful every minute of every day.

You are allowed to have hard moments.

We're Asking Postpartum Mothers to Do Much More Than Care for a Baby

Sometimes I think we underestimate how much a postpartum mother is actually doing because so much of it is invisible.

From the outside, it can look like, “You're feeding the baby and putting them down for naps. They sleep for a few hours. Why is this so hard?”

But that's not actually what is happening.

You might be leaking milk all over yourself. You might have stitches on your vulva, be bleeding constantly, and wearing a diaper. Going to the bathroom might hurt. You finally start to relax enough to fall asleep, and then your baby wakes up.

Your partner may be stressed too and still figuring out how to be helpful. Your parents might come over to “help,” but their version of help isn't actually the help you need. You're still cleaning bottles, pumping, doing laundry, figuring out meals, and trying to maintain some semblance of a home.

And then there's the invisible work.

You're learning your baby. You're watching their cues and trying to figure out what they need. You're wondering whether they're eating enough, sleeping enough, growing enough. You're scheduling doctor's appointments. You're looking things up because you don't know what you're doing yet. You're constantly making decisions about a person who can't tell you what they need.

You might be thinking about the next stage while you're still physically recovering from the last one.

And maybe you have another child who still needs you. Maybe you're trying to manage work. Maybe you're navigating changes in your relationship. Maybe you're trying to remember who you are in the middle of this enormous identity shift.

This is a lot.

You're recovering from pregnancy and birth, your body is healing, you're keeping a human being alive, you're learning an entirely new person, and you're potentially caring for your home and other children at the same time. You're doing all of this while your hormones are changing and your sleep is fragmented.

So when a mother tells me she's exhausted, overwhelmed, frustrated, or having a hard time being present with her baby, I want to slow down and actually look at everything she's carrying.

Not just, “How is the baby doing?”

How are you doing? What are you being asked to hold right now?

Sometimes when we actually spell it all out, it makes much more sense why someone is struggling. It doesn't mean something is wrong with her. It means she's carrying an enormous amount.

You can be grateful and still want a break

I think one of the most harmful ideas about motherhood is that gratitude and grief are somehow opposites.

You can be grateful that you have your child and miss your old life. You can love being a mother and miss going to work. You can feel fortunate to have your baby and desperately want someone else to take over for a few hours. You can want to soak up every moment and also think, “I don't want to do this today. This is a lot.”

You might miss quiet. You might miss spontaneity. You might miss getting your nails done without having to plan around a baby. You might miss having time completely to yourself. You might miss your body feeling like your own.

None of that means you don't appreciate what you have.

There is a real loss that can come with becoming a parent, even when becoming a parent is something you wanted deeply. Your life changes. Your responsibilities change. Your relationships change. Your sense of yourself can change.

We can't get rid of grief and wants just because we're grateful. And we don't need to.

Where does the “good mother” image come from?

Part of this pressure comes from the cultural image we've been given of what a mother is supposed to be.

For generations, American culture has sold us an idealized image of motherhood: the happy mother doing everything, the endlessly nurturing caregiver who seems fulfilled by every part of parenting. Social media has given us even more opportunities to see carefully curated versions of other people's families.

It can be hard to see the real picture of motherhood when you're constantly comparing your private experience to everyone else's public one.

When you internalize that image, it's easy to start thinking:

I'm not enough.

I'm failing.

I'm not trying hard enough.

Other moms are better at this.

They know something I don't.

Why can't I enjoy this the way I'm supposed to?

And now you're not just exhausted or overwhelmed. You're ashamed that you're exhausted and overwhelmed.

That's a very different experience.

Our own upbringing can also shape these expectations. Did you grow up with parents who talked honestly about how difficult parenting could be? Did you see them make mistakes, get frustrated, need breaks, and still love their children deeply?

Or did you mostly see the polished version?

Sometimes we enter parenthood without ever having had the highs and lows of parenting modeled for us. We may also compare our experience to families who had more support, more resources, or different circumstances. That doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong with you or that you have an attachment wound. Sometimes you simply weren't given a realistic picture of how hard this can be.

“Maybe I'm just not good at this”

This is where the pressure to be grateful can become especially painful.

If you believe that a good mother should be happy, present, nurturing, and grateful, then every moment when you aren't those things can start to feel like evidence that you're failing.

Instead of:

“I'm exhausted and I need help.”

It becomes:

“I'm exhausted because I'm not good at this.”

Instead of:

“I really need some time alone.”

It becomes:

“A good mom wouldn't want to get away from her baby.”

Instead of:

“This isn't what I expected.”

It becomes:

“Something must be wrong with me.”

That shame matters. It can intensify anxiety, depression, and self-worth struggles that are already present.

Sometimes the most painful part isn't the emotion itself. It's the story we attach to having the emotion.

What if you measured motherhood by your values instead of your feelings?

I often help clients identify their values and then think about what those values look like in their parenting.

Instead of asking, “Am I happy enough?” you might ask, “Am I trying to live within my values?”

For example, authenticity is one of my own values. For me, that means being truthful, being myself, being direct, and being clear about my needs. So I can ask myself whether I'm modeling those things for my children.

That doesn't mean I do it perfectly. I'm going to make mistakes. Sometimes I'm not going to communicate the way I want to. Sometimes I'm going to lose my patience.

But I can own that.

I can show my children that making mistakes is part of being human, and that repairing those mistakes matters.

Most of us want similar things for our children, even if we use different words to describe them. We want our children to know that their needs matter. That their emotions are okay. That they don't have to be perfect to be loved. That they deserve care and connection. That they belong.

If we want those things for our children, we also have to consider whether we're modeling them toward ourselves.

Can I love myself even when I don't love every part of what I'm doing?

Can I acknowledge that I made a mistake without deciding that I am a failure?

Can I recognize that I need a break without deciding that I don't care about my child?

Can I have difficult emotions without treating those emotions as evidence that I'm doing something wrong?

These are the things our children learn from watching us.

One of the questions I come back to with clients is: Treat yourself the way you want your kid to treat themselves when they get older.

Talk to yourself the way you would talk to someone you love

Many of the women I work with are incredibly compassionate people.

They're caring friends. They're empathetic partners. They can listen to someone they love, understand what they're going through, and offer thoughtful advice.

The hard part is giving that same compassion to themselves.

So imagine that a friend came to you and said:

“I'm having such a hard time. This isn't going the way I expected. I thought I'd be enjoying all these moments with my baby. I thought I'd be soaking it all up. Everyone keeps telling me to be grateful because this time goes so quickly, and all I can think about is how I'm not doing that. I'm struggling. I'm crying. I'm frustrated. I'm tired. I can't stay present with my child.”

What would you say to her?

You probably wouldn't tell her that she's failing.

You might say, “I get it. That sounds really hard. It sounds like you're trying really hard. You're disappointed that this isn't what you expected. And you're doing a great job. It's a lot.”

Now imagine your child, years from now, telling you that same story about becoming a parent.

What would you want them to hear from you?

It is often much easier to access our compassionate selves when we're imagining someone we love.

The question is whether we can begin offering some of that same compassion to ourselves.

When “I'm having a hard time” becomes “I'm truly suffering”

Normalizing the difficulty of postpartum life doesn't mean ignoring symptoms that need more support.

There is a difference between having difficult emotions and experiencing them with a level of intensity, frequency, or severity that is interfering with your ability to function.

And that distinction isn't just about the emotion itself. It depends on your circumstances. What is a reasonable expectation for this period of time given your specific situation? How much support do you have? How was your pregnancy and birth? How is your body recovering? Are you returning to work? Do you have a partner who is truly in it with you? What is your baby's temperament? How are you coping with all of it?

Then we look at what the emotional experience is actually like. Are you able to take care of your basic needs? Are you sleeping and eating? Is your anxiety constant or severe? Are you experiencing panic? Are there signs of a trauma response? Are you so fatigued that you can't get out of bed, or so anxious that you can't sleep?

Are you able to care for yourself and your baby, or are you doing it but feeling like you're barely holding on by a thread?

It's one thing to say, “I'm having a really hard time.” It's another to say, “I'm truly suffering. I don't know if I can keep going. I feel like I'm falling apart. I feel like I can't hold it together.”

If that's where you are, you deserve additional support. You don't have to wait until things become unbearable.

And getting support doesn't mean you've failed at motherhood. It means you're recognizing that you're carrying more than you should have to carry alone.

Postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and even psychosis are all very treatable. You just need the right supports.

You don't have to prove that you're grateful

I hope we can stop treating happiness as evidence of good motherhood.

You don't have to spend every waking moment wanting to be with your child. You don't have to enjoy every stage. You don't have to feel grateful every day. You don't have to love every part of parenting.

You can have moments of anger, sadness, frustration, anxiety, grief, boredom, resentment, or exhaustion and still love your child deeply.

You can be grateful and still need a break.

You can be struggling and still be a wonderful mother.

The goal isn't to eliminate difficult emotions. It's to make room for the full experience of being human while paying attention to when those emotions become so intense or persistent that you need more support.

And instead of asking yourself whether you're happy enough, you might ask something different:

Am I trying to live according to the values I want to pass on to my child?

Am I treating myself with the same compassion I want my child to have for themselves?

Am I allowing myself to be human while I'm learning how to do something incredibly hard?

You don't have to earn your gratitude by being happy.

You don't have to be emotionally perfect to be a good mother.

And you don't have to do this alone.