5 Ways to be a Really Great Mom (When You Feel Like a Bad One)

Kelly Crawford
4 min readSep 4, 2023
Photo by evgenyataman

Now that I’ve been a parent for 23 years, I realize that all my good intentions about what kind of parent I was going to be before I actually had children was a lot more intention and less reality.

The truth is, it seems so simple (and in some senses it is) to be a great mom until you’re in the thick of it and suddenly, “What. on. earth??!!”

To begin with, no two children are alike. Ever. (I kept having them to see, and you can trust me on this one.) There is nothing like diversity to throw your one-size-fits-all parenting askew.

Also, when you’re anticipating parenting, before you actually are one, there is so much less life to live, so much less stress somehow, less distractions, and more of you.

So then, you wake up one day to find yourself in survival mode, trying to keep the children alive, and somehow, this is not how you envisioned motherhood would be.

So when it comes down to it, what does it take to be a really great mom anyway?

What is the best thing you can do for your kids? Today? How can you leave the kind of legacy where…

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Kelly Crawford

Follower of Jesus, wife, homeschooling mother of 11, blogger, author, speaker, introvert & entrepreneur.