Episode #451 – The Good Mother Rulebook Nobody Published but Everyone Follows

This is episode 451 of the Brilliant Balance podcast: The Good Mother Rulebook That Nobody Published, but Everyone Follows.

Welcome back to the Brilliant Balance world. Since this is the place where we talk about what it actually takes to live a full, balanced, thriving life—not an idealized version, but a real one—I want to warn you that today’s episode could land like a bit of a wake-up call.

What I’m going to talk about today is this rulebook that, in my experience, every mother I know is following, even though we’ve never actually been handed it. Nobody published it. Nobody made you agree to it. But you have it. I call this the Good Mother Rulebook, and I think it’s probably running through your head right now.

It probably has been for years, even before you became a mother. Let me tell you, I knew the very most about being a mother before I ever became one. I think my knowledge has decreased every single year since then.

This book gets handed to us—or maybe I should say internalized by us—very early on. To set the scene for this episode, I want to go back to a day when my son, Tucker, was four.

He was enrolled in a little preschool that my friend Anna, who was kind of my mother mentor, had told me about when my oldest daughter was starting preschool. It was an adorable little church-based preschool. Tucker was in the four-year-old class, which means my oldest was already in school and I had a one-year-old at home.

At that point in my life, I want you to know I was a very organized mother. I had systems. I tracked things. I had a calendar that I checked often. Generally speaking, I was not somebody who didn’t have my stuff together.

So, picture day? No problem. I had picked out the shirt he was going to wear weeks in advance. Truth be told, I probably bought a new shirt for him to wear on picture day. I had probably scheduled a haircut around this photo opportunity. I knew exactly what was going to happen on picture day. It felt like a moment in this little guy’s life.

But then life was lifing. I had an older child and a tiny one at home. When picture day arrived, I sent Tucker off to school as usual—except I had completely forgotten about it.

So I get to work, and he’s wearing whatever shirt I pulled out of the drawer that morning, which was not the one I had planned. He also didn’t have an order form with him—the envelope they give you. He didn’t have any money with him to pay for picture day. This was before everything became digital, so I think the process has changed a lot since then.

But I had no idea. I was completely oblivious to the fact that it was picture day.

I go on about my day, and I’m in a meeting when my phone rings. It’s the preschool office. And if you’ve ever gotten this call, your heart drops because you assume something has happened.

They immediately reassured me that Tucker was fine. They just needed to know whether I wanted his picture taken.

I said, “Well, yes.”

And they said, “Well, today’s picture day.”

At that point, my heart rate picked up and my stomach dropped. The woman explained that they didn’t have the form, and while she was talking, I was silently processing everything she was saying. My brain was racing.

Could I get there in time? Could I get the right shirt, the form, and the money? Could I leave work?

I couldn’t. My office was downtown, and he was all the way back in the suburbs. There was no way I could solve the problem in real time, which only added to my distress.

I don’t remember exactly what I said as I tried to negotiate my way through the situation, but I remember the feeling.

It wasn’t really embarrassment, although that was part of it. It was shame.

I’m always grateful to Brené Brown for teaching us the distinction. Embarrassment is, “I did something dumb.” You can laugh at yourself. Shame is, “I am dumb. I am the mistake.”

There’s an identity attached to it.

When that call came and I couldn’t fix the situation, I ended the conversation, went to the bathroom, and cried. I was so upset that I had failed in what felt like an important parenting moment.

Then I went back to my desk and rebuilt all my tracking systems and reminder systems so it would never happen again. I doubled down on effort to punish myself for the sins I’d committed.

As I record this episode, Tucker is 18, about to turn 19.

He does not remember this experience at all.

It didn’t affect him in the slightest. He didn’t even register it at the time. He doesn’t remember a single detail.

And if I’m honest, I don’t even know where the picture is. I have no idea where his four-year-old picture lives today. We were taking so many pictures at that stage that I’m sure I had others I liked better and ended up displaying.

The whole thing faded into the background.

But at the time, I was spiraling because, in my Good Mother Rulebook, good mothers remember picture day. Good mothers send the envelope. They have the money ready. They pick the right shirt. They schedule the haircut.

Good mothers do not get calls from the school office.

I had broken the rules, and I felt it to my bones.

That’s what I want to root today’s episode in. Whatever your version of missing picture day is, the source of the feelings that come with the miss is the Good Mother Rulebook.

It’s not a published book. In fact, that would be too easy. Then we could just read it and know what to do. We’d have a handbook like the one you sign on your first day at work.

But nobody gives you that handbook when you become a mother.

Instead, it lives in the ether. It’s elusive.

I think the Good Mother Rulebook is a collection of standards, expectations, and beliefs that you hold—most of them without even realizing it—about what it means to be a good mother.

Some of the rules you probably know are there. You could recite them. Others you don’t realize exist until you break one.

And then you know exactly how it feels because that shame response fires like an alarm.

Suddenly you’re standing in your kitchen crying over a school photo taken in the wrong shirt.

Every mother I have ever worked with is running on some version of this rulebook.

The rules are different for everyone, and that’s important. There isn’t one universal rulebook we’re all following. We each have a version we’ve intuited and internalized, making it unique to us.

That’s one of the most insidious parts.

The experience of having the rulebook is universal. The contents are highly individualized.

And high achievers are especially susceptible to being governed by it.

Why?

Because we’ve been rewarded for following rules. We’re good at it. It’s probably how we achieved early success in the first place.

So when motherhood comes along, we think, “If I can just figure out the rules and follow them, I’ll be safe.”

But it doesn’t work that way.

We start applying rules we never agreed to. We follow standards we can barely articulate. And that gets us into all sorts of trouble.

So if this rulebook isn’t published anywhere, where does it come from?

I think we absorb it.

Over the years, without realizing it, we’re collecting data about what good mothering looks like. Every example we witness becomes a data point. Our brains synthesize it all into a working model of what we should be doing.

The first example is usually your own mother.

Whether you’re determined to be just like her or nothing like her, you’re still using her as a model.

What did she value? What did she let slide? How did she move through the work of raising you?

Was she warm and snuggly? Formal and reserved? Focused on home? Focused on a career? Both?

Did she cook dinner every night? Were you a takeout family?

My friend Tracy used to joke that she grew up in a microwave family. My mom cooked dinner every night. Tracy’s mom proudly said, “If it can’t be heated in the microwave, we’re not eating it.”

That was mind-opening for me.

The choices your mother made became a baseline. Then, consciously or unconsciously, you decided whether to emulate them or react against them.

And then you started watching other mothers.

Your friends’ moms. The moms at school pickup. The moms at soccer games. The moms bringing homemade treats to the bake sale or showing up with store-bought cookies.

You notice who arrives early and polished and who rushes in breathless at the last minute.

You absorb information from birthday parties, Valentine’s boxes, Halloween costumes, and classroom volunteering.

Even when we’re trying not to compare ourselves, we’re still paying attention.

Then, somewhere in the last couple of decades, we started watching mothers on the internet.

And if you’re looking for an efficient delivery system for impossible standards, the internet is hard to beat.

All that observation gets compressed into a belief system: the unwritten rules you’re holding yourself to.

It’s happening quietly. Often unconsciously.

But I assure you, it’s there.

So let me give you a sampler platter of what might be in your rulebook.

• A good mother puts a home-cooked dinner on the table every night.
• A good mother always knows her kids’ shoe sizes.
• A good mother keeps an uncluttered house.
• A good mother takes her kids to the pool in the summer.
• A good mother never misses a game.
• A good mother allows sleepovers.
• A good mother doesn’t yell.
• A good mother packs healthy lunches.
• A good mother reads to her kids every night.
• A good mother volunteers in the classroom.
• A good mother orders the yearbook on time.
• A good mother is warm but firm.

The list goes on forever.

What I want you to notice is that every one of these rules is completely negotiable.

There are wonderful mothers who never cook from scratch. Great mothers who don’t know their child’s shoe size. Excellent mothers who miss games, forget picture day, and live in houses that look lived in.

And their children are doing just fine.

The rules feel universal, but they’re not.

Most of us unconsciously believe there’s a shared scoreboard we’re all being measured against.

There isn’t.

You’ve created your own custom rulebook based on your culture, faith, community, childhood experiences, and observations.

Mine isn’t the same as yours.

Yours isn’t the same as the next listener’s.

That actually makes it harder because we’re judging ourselves as though everyone shares our standards.

No one can see the scoreboard except you.

That’s what makes it so insidious.

So here are three things I want you to do.

First: publish your rulebook.

Not publicly. Just write it down.

Take ten minutes and list all the rules you’re carrying around. Start with prompts like:

• A good mother always…
• A good mother never…

Don’t edit yourself. Don’t judge yourself. Just document the rules.

Second: figure out where the rules came from.

For each one, ask:

Where did I pick this up?

Was it my mother? A neighbor? A teacher? A parenting book? A social media influencer? A comment someone made years ago that lodged itself in my brain?

Just notice the source.

Third: decide which rules you actually want to keep.

This is where freedom begins.

Ask yourself:

Does this rule genuinely matter to me?

Does it support love, safety, and growth?

Or is it just a preference that I inherited?

Some rules you’ll choose to keep because they reflect your values.

Others you’ll realize you don’t care about at all.

For me, homemade Halloween costumes were one of those inherited rules.

I grew up with them. My mom was a kindergarten teacher and loved creating them.

But eventually I decided I didn’t need to carry that standard forward.

Store-bought costumes worked just fine.

The truth is that only a handful of things in motherhood are genuinely non-negotiable:

Love your child.

Help them feel safe.

Help them feel seen.

Create a place where they can grow.

Research consistently points us back to those things.

Remembering picture day isn’t one of them.

Neither are homemade dinners, perfect lunches, or showing up to every sporting event.

Those are choices.

So sort your list.

Keep what aligns with your values.

Release what doesn’t.

Because following a rulebook you consciously choose is very different from following one you absorbed without consent.

When you choose your standards, there’s joy behind them instead of obligation.

There’s love instead of duty.

The energy is completely different.

That picture day experience with Tucker felt, at the time, like an indictment of my mothering.

But it wasn’t.

The rulebook told me it was.

The rulebook lied.

And I believed it.

So whatever rules are creating shame in your life right now—whatever standards you’re measuring yourself against that you never consciously agreed to—those are the ones worth examining.

This doesn’t mean you don’t care.

In fact, it’s because you care.

That’s why you’re listening to an episode like this.

But caring isn’t the same thing as following a rulebook you didn’t write.

You get to decide what good mothering looks like for you.

Rule by rule.

Piece by piece.

Eyes wide open.

And so do your peers.

If someone came to mind while you were listening—someone who needs to hear this—send them the episode.

Maybe it’s a daughter. A sister. A colleague. A friend.

We’re all so hard on ourselves.

Give someone else the gift of relief.

That is all for today, my friends.

Until next time, let’s be brilliant.