Growing up, I wanted a large family.
In fact, I used to tell my friends that I wanted eight children.
Eight!
I honestly don’t know what I was smoking then, but anyway. 😂
Now that I’m grown and have two children of my own, I look back at that dream and laugh because I don’t see myself having more than the two children I already have.
Parenting is a lot.
And I don’t just mean the feeding, clothing, school fees, birthday parties, doctor’s appointments, homework, and trying to remember who needs what on which day.
Those things are demanding enough.
But there is a much deeper part of parenting that nobody can prepare you for.
It is realizing that these innocent little human beings have been placed in your care and that, for a significant part of their lives, you are responsible for guiding them.
Parenting is so scary because you love these people more than life, yet you cannot control everything that will happen to them or every decision they will eventually make.
And somehow, mothers are still expected to.
There are some things we have to stop blaming mothers for because they were never theirs to control in the first place.
7 Things Mothers Are Blamed For That Were Never in Their Control
1. Their Child’s Personality
I have two children: an 8-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy, and if you met them, you would wonder how the same two people produced both of them.
They are completely different.
Of course, I can see little pieces of both their father and me in each of them, but they are still very much their own people.
My son is caring, creative, sensitive, and incredibly thoughtful.
He is also shy and very careful.
He is not the child who sees something dangerous and says, “That looks fun. Let me try it.”
My daughter?
Different story.
She is daring, fearless, and competitive.
She is also brilliant academically.
She won the Mathematician of the Year award at her last graduation, and she was so proud of herself.
She cares about people too, but she expresses herself very differently from her brother.
Same home, same mother, same father, same general upbringing.
Two completely different personalities.
And I love them equally, but I also understand that loving your children equally does not mean parenting them identically.
This is something mothers are often blamed for.
If a child is shy, people ask what the mother did to make him timid, and if the child is stubborn, the mother spoiled her/him.
Parenting matters, but individual differences are real too.
Even siblings raised under the same roof can respond to the same experiences differently because they are different human beings.
As a mother, I will guide my children and correct behavior that needs correcting.
But I won’t spend my life trying to force my shy child to become the loudest person in the room or trying to remove the fearlessness from my daughter because somebody thinks girls should be quieter.
My job is not to manufacture two identical children who behave the way society finds convenient, but to help my children become the healthiest versions of who they already are.
And sometimes, a child’s personality is simply that: their personality.
Not everything about a child needs to be traced back to something their mother did wrong.
2. Their Child’s Adult Choices
I usually say that once you become an adult, you lose every right to keep blaming your parents for every decision you make.
Yes, childhood trauma is real, and the way we were raised shapes us, but healing is your responsibility as an adult.
Haven’t you seen siblings raised in the same home take completely different paths?
One becomes responsible and hardworking, while another ends up making one destructive decision after another.
Parents influence us, but they don’t control us forever.
A mother can teach honesty, and her adult son may still choose to lie.
It doesn’t mean she failed as a mother.
Every one of us needs to stop asking, “What did my parents do to me?” and start asking, “What am I going to do with the life I have now?”
Because while your parents may have written the first few chapters of your story, they don’t write the rest.
You do.
3. Who Their Child Falls in Love With
When I was single, I used to think parents should just let their children marry whoever they loved.
Now that I’m a parent?
Hmm. I understand parents a little better.
I am honestly already praying concerning my children’s marital lives because imagine spending years raising your child, pouring love, wisdom, values, prayers, money, and everything you have into them, only for them to grow up and bring home somebody who makes you start questioning whether all your prayers entered voicemail.
Imagine raising your daughter to know her worth, only for her to fall in love with a man who treats her like trash.
Who your child chooses as a life partner affects every area of their life.
So yes, as a parent, I hope my children choose well.
And if I notice serious red flags, I will speak.
But also, every parent needs to accept that you cannot control who your adult child falls in love with.
You can advise, warn, pray, and ask questions, but their heart and their decision belong to them.
And sometimes, despite everything a mother taught her child, that child will still choose someone she would never have chosen for them.
Adults make their own choices.
Good mothers can raise daughters who choose terrible men.
So if an adult child makes a poor choice in love, people should not turn around and ask, “What kind of mother raised them?”
Sometimes, a mother did her part.
Her grown child simply made a choice she could not make for them.
4. Every Bad Thing That Happens to Their Child
As a mum, I want to protect my children from everything.
I want to shield them from heartbreak, disappointment, rejection, failure, sickness, betrayal, all of it.
If I could remove every painful experience from their lives, I would.
But we cannot bubble-wrap our children through life.
Sooner or later, life happens.
They’ll experience loss.
They’ll cry, fail, and meet people who don’t treat them well.
Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble.”
Not because your mother failed.
Life can be painfully unfair.
Our job isn’t to make sure our children never fall, but to raise them with the resilience and faith to get back up when they do.
5. Genetics
I read a book some months ago titled Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids.
One of the arguments the author made was that the outcome of a child’s life is influenced more by genetics than most people realize.
The author wasn’t saying parenting doesn’t matter; it does, but the book challenged the idea that parents are responsible for everything their children become.
As mothers, we don’t get to decide whether our child will naturally excel at music, mathematics, sports, or art.
We don’t choose their height, eyesight, allergies, or whether they’ll inherit their father’s sense of humor.
Genetics had already had a long meeting before we ever entered the delivery room.
So, motherhood isn’t about engineering the perfect child, but loving and guiding the unique child you’ve been given.
6. Their Child’s Success or Failure in Everything
Like I wrote earlier, my daughter won the Mathematician of the Year award at her graduation ceremony, and I couldn’t have been prouder.
Now, I could easily turn that into a parenting masterclass and tell you exactly what we did so your child can become a maths genius too.
But that wouldn’t be honest.
The truth is she’s naturally gifted.
I think she got that from her father because maths isn’t my forte.
Of course we encourage her and make education important in our home, but we didn’t manufacture her ability.
We simply nurtured a gift that was already there.
7. The Relationship Between Siblings
I recently talked about sibling rivalry on my WhatsApp status, particularly how favoritism can damage the relationship between brothers and sisters.
The number of messages I received afterward honestly broke my heart.
People shared stories about siblings they haven’t spoken to in years.
Some admitted they still carry the pain of being compared to a brother or sister decades later.
Parents have a responsibility to treat their children fairly because favoritism can leave wounds that last a lifetime.
But then, children raised in loving homes sometimes drift apart.
Life happens, people move, get married, misunderstandings arise, personalities clash…
A mother cannot force two grown adults to remain close forever.
I pray my own children stay close long after my husband and I are gone.
But when they become adults, that relationship will belong to them.
Not me.
Motherhood is one of the greatest responsibilities in the world, but we’ve turned it into an impossible one.
Yes, mothers shape lives, but they are not all-powerful.
They are human.
So if you’re a mother reading this and you’ve been carrying guilt for something that was never yours to control, this is your reminder to put that burden down.
Love your children, guide them, pray for them, and be there for them, but don’t spend the rest of your life apologizing for things only God has the power to control.