Could We At Least Stop Saying, “At Least,” to New Moms?

To a mother: “At least you have a healthy baby.”

To a spouse: “Could you at least put you dirty clothes in the hamper instead of the bathroom floor?”

To a mother: “At least you can feed her something, even if you’re not breastfeeding.”

To a coworker: “I talked to the company that messed up our order, despite their repeated assurances of their quality customer service & told them the absolute least they could do was give us a refund.”

In the non-birth situations, we recognize that we are talking about the bare minimum - that so much more is rightfully expected in the situation. But then we tell mothers they must be grateful for the bare minimum, that they have no real justification for expecting more. We tell her that a healthy baby matters & a healthy mother doesn’t.

When we have these attitudes, we give no space for a mother to sort through her own emotions about one of the most major events in her life. She IS grateful that her baby is being nourished, but she can do that and have grief that it’s not the way she envisioned. Or maybe it’s early days yet and there are still ways and means for her to succeed at her goals if someone would just help her use the tools instead of telling her not to even bother looking for the tool chest.

She probably knows the joy of her beautiful, healthy baby better than you do - but as she admires that soft, gorgeous newborn she also looks down at her own worn-out & sore body, wondering if anything could have been different or if this is what birth is always like.

So let’s remove these condescending phrases that tell a woman what she ought to think. Let’s be there to listen to her to find out what she DOES think. Let’s ask her -

“How are you feeling?”

“What’s your favorite part of motherhood right now? What’s hard?”

“How was your birth support?” “How is your support network right now?”

”Are there things you wish you knew more about beforehand?”

~ ~

And let’s not lecture and moralize and tell her things we think she should feel. Let’s tell her truthful things we know that she probably doesn’t think of enough:
”You are a beautiful mother!”

“He just loves to look up at his mom!”

“You are working so hard & rocking this new world of motherhood.”

These are the phrases mothers need to hear. 100%.

And if you are truly at a loss for words - this phrase is never out of place: “Congratulations! Your baby is beautiful! Can I bring you a meal one night next week?”