MOM ARCHETYPE #3 - THE NURTURER
Welcome to the Small Jar Podcast, where we moms of teens find the power to step off the emotional rollercoaster between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins. Episode number 108.
Hello, my friends. Welcome back to Small Jar's Mom Archetype Series. So far, I've covered The Guardian and The Achiever, and today I want to focus on The Nurturer.
But first, I want to share a personal story that relates to this mom archetype. So right now, my oldest son is home from college, and my baby's gearing up for his senior year in high school. I am literally in the midst of what I call the empty nest straddle, one foot still in the role of raising teens, and the other one planted in the world of the empty nest.
I'm struck by how fluid this concept of the empty nest is. You start to feel it well before your oldest even goes to college. I've been coaching women with kids in the early years of high school, and they already feel it, this sense that they're going to have to learn to let go.
I remember feeling it already when my oldest was a freshman in high school. I was so focused on helping him achieve his ambitious goals for college, it was like I was already locked in on this end goal. I felt such a sense of responsibility to support him in this.
Interestingly, as I really look back, what I'd seen in my son was a love of learning, a curiosity that I thought was so special that I felt like he was destined to go to a great college and do great things in life. But what I honestly missed the first time around was that my son wasn't motivated by the prestige of the college. He wasn't studying hard and challenging himself because he wanted the prize of getting into a school ranked in U.S. News and World Report's top 10.
He was literally studying because he's passionate about these subjects. He just loves learning. I have to be honest, he didn't get this from me.
I studied hard in school because I wanted to get into a great college, so I approached supporting my oldest high school journey in very much the same way I approached my own high school journey. Although, admittedly, the process we faced when we were at this age was so much less competitive. I think I interpreted that to mean that my son had to work even harder to be successful.
The point is that I truly thought I was supporting my son and helping him be successful. I knew he had the potential and he was already working hard, so to me it seemed obvious that the goal was to get into an excellent school. I learned through an exceptionally painful journey with my son that what I thought was support felt like control to him.
And I share all of this to say the challenge of finding that right balance of support and autonomy is not easy. The answers aren't obvious and they're different for each one of our kids and each one of us. It's messy.
It's fluid. What works one month might change entirely the next month. Fast forward to this summer when my oldest is now home from his first year in college and our relationship is miraculously strong again.
He's opening up to me in a way that I take as a precious gift, something I'd lost for a period of time that I will never again take for granted. But at the same time, I still see my brain wanting to remind him to be safe, wanting to give him advice about how he's spending his summer or how he should approach relationships or school next year. Even though I've learned so many lessons with this young man, that doesn't mean I don't have the instinct to continue to lean into this purpose and responsibility of being a mom who loves and supports her sons, who would do anything to help them be safe, happy, and successful.
My youngest is a very different kid, but I'm trying to lean into the lessons I learned the first time around. It's not easy. So far, my youngest has been willing to listen to my advice for the most part.
Actually, that's not entirely true. He listens to my advice when he agrees with it. But I think actually what's easier is that my youngest and I are more similar in how we approach goals.
And so I think for the most part, he gets it when I chime in with a reminder to start thinking about his Common App essay. What strikes me here is that it's so easy to think there's a right way to parent our kids if we could only find it. We want our kids to be safe, happy, and successful.
You can think of this as our measure of success in a way. Because if our kids are safe and making the right choices, if they generally seem to be happy or content, feeling good about themselves, and if they seem to be moving in the right direction, well, then all of this means in our minds that we've been successful. Safe? Check.
Happy? Check. Successful? Check. My work here is done.
Thank you and good night. Except this work never ends, my friend. If we're lucky, we get to experience moments like those times when everyone is home safe, in their rooms.
You've had a fun family dinner and everyone seems to be happy. Those potentially rare but beautiful leave-it-to-beaver moments when you get to go to bed with a sigh of satisfaction or relief that all is well, but it doesn't always last. So the question I want to invite you to consider throughout this episode is, how are you measuring your success as a mom? And let me just say also that you get to feel successful as a mom.
We don't always give ourselves as much credit as we deserved for all of the great work we're doing. In fact, even as I reflect on the ways that I might have been less overbearing with my oldest son during high school, there's a big part of me that also wants to say to him, you're welcome. And I'm not saying he's not grateful to me, he absolutely is.
But there's also a part where no matter what our kids think about how we raise them, there is no amount of gratitude that's going to make up for us not believing in ourselves first. And I would be willing to bet that at a minimum, you can believe that you have given this parenting thing your all. That you're always trying your best.
You've done everything in your power to support your kids and you've been successful in so many ways so far. So with that, let me turn to the Mom Archetype series where I'm reflecting on our strengths as moms and on the skills and the intention that we've applied to parenting that have helped our kids be safe, happy, and successful in so many ways throughout their lives. Even though in this transitional moment, what I call the emptiness straddle, it can sometimes feel as if we're doing it wrong and that we need to completely change or reevaluate our approach.
I wonder if it's more useful to think of this journey as an opportunity to get to know yourself more deeply, so that you can lean into your strengths as a mom more intentionally, with a greater awareness of your goals and your assets, but also your vulnerabilities, which could make you feel terrible or lead you to be less effective than you might want to be in your relationship with your teens, and honestly also in your relationship with yourself. So I've mentioned that these Mom Archetypes are a Myers-Briggs or Enneagram-style model of who we are as moms, but also who we are as women. I'm taking it as a given that each of these types loves her kids and tries her best.
These models or archetypes are each defined by their strengths, and throughout our lives as moms and in different situations or stages with our kids, we might lean more in the direction of any one of these four Mom Archetypes. As I said, these types aren't just about who we are as moms. They're even more about who we are as women and how we relate to our responsibility and role as a mother.
The way you parent, the way you show up for your kids, believe it or not, it has much more to do with who you are than anything else. It has to do with how you define your success as a mom. In fact, it actually has to do a lot with how you want to feel as a mom.
We want to feel safe, happy, at peace, and confident. And so often, it seems like these feelings are difficult to achieve when we perceive that our kids are struggling or in danger. This is why developing this self-awareness is so powerful when it comes to actually creating more of these emotions that you want in your life.
Peace, happiness, and confidence. So if you haven't already, you can find the Mom Archetype quiz on my website homepage at www.thesmalljar.com. Now, the four Mom Archetypes are the Guardian, the Achiever, the Nurturer, and the Mentor. And this week, I'm discussing the Nurturer.
This type of mom's strengths include unconditional love, empathy, compassion, adaptability, patience, and resilience. Now, I'm going to be honest. If you had asked me 25 years ago if I had empathy, compassion, or patience, I would probably have had to answer honestly, sometimes.
Well, empathy and compassion, I would say I've always had. Although in the past, I wouldn't have necessarily recognized them as one of my greatest strengths. Patience, I think I would have given myself a really low rating on that one before having kids.
And yet, as I think about the Nurturer Archetype, I see myself today. Now, the strengths of the Nurturer are not necessarily exclusive to women, and they're not even instinctual when we become mothers. I definitely think there's some women among us who are naturally empathetic and patient, but the same can be true of men.
I talked a bit in the Guardian Archetype episode about the hormonal factors that contribute to us bonding with our kids. And it's definitely possible that these same factors could cause us to develop more empathy as we develop a closer connection to our children. But I think it's worth considering that there are some pretty significant social and cultural expectations that influence how we view what a nurturing mother looks like.
I'll even go so far as to say that these expectations are so ingrained in us that we probably don't even realize that we're influenced by them. We've probably all seen that mom in the grocery store just losing it on her kids, totally losing her patience, yelling at them to behave. And let's face it, there's a part of us that's judging her.
Because we've also probably been that mom. I know I have. And I was judging myself even more harshly, completely ashamed that I wasn't able to keep my cool and be patient, to have compassion for my little boys who were sick of running errands.
In fact, I might even suggest that we so deeply believe in the importance of the strengths and the traits of the Nurturer mom that it can almost feel as if this is an ideal that we hold ourselves up against, a high bar that we're always striving to meet. But while some of us might not be natural nurturers before we have kids, I do think that these strengths are also learned behaviors, traits that we've developed and practiced over time and throughout the experience of raising our kids. Parenting is an ever-evolving learning experience that requires us to constantly adapt to the needs of our kids.
We've had to learn the skill of empathy, really understanding the needs of our kids, watching them for signs of stress or unhappiness. Our patience has been tested through years of sleepless nights, tantrums, sibling rivalries, and our kids' ability to completely ignore what we ask them to do. With every stage, we've had to adapt, be flexible and resilient.
That which does not kill us makes us stronger. And this can absolutely be said of being a parent. Whether we were born with these strengths or not, we have been forced to learn them, trial by fire.
And as a result, these nurturing strengths are likely much stronger in you than you might even realize. But of course, each of us develop these traits of empathy and resilience in different ways. For some of us, it's more natural, a part of who we've always been.
For others of us, it's more of a learned skill set, maybe even more highly focused on our kids than in other relationships. Our upbringing can also play a part here. Some of us might have grown up with positive role models or in supportive environments that then influenced our nurturer strengths.
I'll also say that some of us might have grown up in more challenging or even toxic family environments where our sense of empathy was a way for us to cope with these challenges. Some examples include when our parents might have struggled with substance abuse, a mental health disorder, or even emotional or physical abuse. In these cases, we as children could have grown up in caregiving roles.
We might have become highly sensitive to the emotional states and needs of our parents and siblings. In other cases, families could simply have a high degree of conflict, where we might have tried to play the role of peacemakers growing up, learning to anticipate needs in an effort to defuse conflict. I've worked with many women who recognize the abuse or the negative impact of these family situations from their past, and they make a conscious effort to parent their children in a different, more supportive way.
This empathy they've learned then becomes a vital and positive tool in their parenting. But this same empathy can then at times lead to vulnerabilities, particularly with family members outside of your immediate children. I'll get into that a bit more later.
One of the greatest strengths of the nurturer is their ability to love unconditionally. You could even think of unconditional love as the cornerstone of the nurturer's parenting philosophy. Now, parenting also creates unconditional love in unique ways.
Again, as I discussed in the Gardening Archetype episode, the bonding hormone oxytocin builds attachment and love between parents and their children. We're also instinctually driven to protect our children and ensure the continuation of our species, even if that's not how we're consciously thinking about it. And so this instinctual drive also underpins the way we think about and unconditionally love our kids.
I also have to say that thinking back on the experiences I've had raising my boys, everything from their first smile to the giggles and the hugs, the first time they said, mama, then I love you. These moments have been so precious and beautiful. Every single one have only deepened my love and commitment to my boys.
Throughout the time they were growing up, it has been wonderful to feel needed. In fact, for a long time, they were entirely dependent on me, and that felt like an incredibly important role, more important than any other job or role I've ever had. As they've achieved milestones from their very first steps to the first time going to school, their first performance, every first, every moment when you see them progress one more year.
Throughout this journey, I felt a profound sense of pride and personal fulfillment. And even the challenges, the sleepless nights and the stress and uncertainty, all of these challenges and sacrifices have in many ways only strengthened the commitment we have to our kids. And then as we get through each new hurdle and stage, we reinforce for ourselves the importance and value of the work that we're doing to raise these beautiful human beings.
For many of us, being a mom has led to the creation of a new and purposeful identity. All this to say there are many biological, social, and personal factors that contribute to reinforcing the strengths of the nurturer in all of us. But most of all, I think this experience of being a mom has reinforced these strengths.
We're constantly checking in on our kids' emotions and needs, fostering our own sense of empathy and compassion. As our kids grow up and their needs change, we need to be flexible and adapt to each new stage of development. Dealing with the ups and downs of raising children, especially teens, has forced us to learn to be patient, even if we lose it sometimes.
In fact, every obstacle and difficulty in parenting our kids strengthens our resilience. And finally, no matter what, the love we feel for our kids is unwavering. So this is where we are now, as moms of teens, on the brink of the empty nest.
The role of motherhood has given us a deep sense of fulfillment and purpose. We can sense and understand our teens' emotions, even when they don't talk to us about them. We strive to offer a safe space for them to express themselves without judgment.
We're always practicing patience. We understand that our kids are going to go through developmental stages and we're committed to wade through the muck of each one of these challenges with them. And at no point are we ever going to give up on them.
We try to be flexible. We're willing to change as our kids' needs change. We always try to be the moms our kids need.
My friend, do you see the nurture in you? I know I do. I know that she's there. She's likely not giving herself enough credit though.
So I want to invite you to just take a moment to celebrate yourself and the nurture that I know is inside of you. As incredible and powerful and beautiful as we are as the nurturer, every superhero has their own version of kryptonite, a vulnerability that can lead us to act in ways we might later view as not ideal or that might make us feel terrible. And so let's explore these vulnerabilities when it comes to the nurturer.
And rather than thinking of these vulnerabilities as proof that there's something wrong with us or something about us that we have to make better, I want to invite you to think about these vulnerabilities as simply ways that our brains can fall into counterproductive ways of thinking because of very reasonable and instinctual desires. Because with each of these mom archetypes we can tend to have particular areas of focus or desires in relation to our kids, each of these archetypes create the potential for a different set of mindset traps. For the nurturer mom, unconditional love is the cornerstone of how she approaches her role and support of her kids.
And in return, she creates for herself a deep sense of purpose and fulfillment. Her identity is in many ways defined by her role as a mom. And this is true even if the mom's worked or has had significant commitments outside of the home while raising her kids.
The nurturer mom in all of us organizes her life around her kids for the benefit of her kids. And her dedication to this role is unparalleled. But as our children grow up and begin to pull away or explore their independence, the nurturer mom can begin to feel a rift in her sense of identity.
And this can happen well before her last child heads to college, when she finds herself fully planted in the empty nest. The nurturer mom can take it personally when her child pulls away. She can feel as if she's doing something wrong to cause her child to ignore or challenge her.
And she can also feel sad if she perceives the connection she has with her child is broken, or as she contemplates a time when her child will be no longer living at home. All of this is perfectly normal. And in fact, I would say if you feel sad as the relationship you have with your child shifts, this emotion is perfectly reasonable.
Where we can run into trouble is when we begin to think about these shifts as signs that we're doing something wrong or that we don't know who we are without our kids. We can start to feel insecure and uncertain or even dread the future. This mindset trap is the identity crisis.
And while it can be a painful place to be, it's also an opportunity to notice and have empathy for yourself and for these feelings so that you can decide who you are and who you want to be. The second mindset trap that the nurturer might be vulnerable to is validation seeking. And I want to be clear, this doesn't make the nurturer a validation seeker.
Let's not start labeling ourselves, which is another mindset trap, by the way. But the truth is that because the nurturer has derived such a meaningful sense of purpose and validation from her role as a mom, as this role shifts, she can feel as if she's losing this validation. I think back to the beautiful moments over the years when my boys were little.
How could I not have felt validated when they gave me big hugs or told me that they loved me? But I can also think of times when my boys have shut me out or pushed against me and I've felt the opposite, rejected, like I don't matter. You can find yourself in this position where you're trying to earn your kids' approval or affection. It's an icky place to be with someone who you love so much.
And this is just as painful for women who have a close relationship with their teens. And she thinks about losing that regular hit of validation, being involved and connected with her teen on a day-to-day basis when her teens go to college. It's perfectly normal for us to desire connection and even validation.
There's actually nothing wrong with wanting those feelings. The validation seeking trap is actually thinking that those feelings, validation and connection, are dependent on the behavior, actions, or even proximity you have with your child or anyone else in your life. And this is an important part for those of us who have been in difficult family situations growing up.
The truth is when your child hugs you and tells you that they love you, you give yourself permission to believe that you're loved. You give yourself permission to believe this. If someone you don't know tells you that they love you, you most likely are not going to believe them.
In your mind, you're going to be skeptical. You don't give yourself permission to believe that they actually love you because you don't believe it's true. You think, they don't even know me, of course they don't love me.
But with your kids, when they say, I love you, you believe it 100%. So it's interesting to consider why we might stop believing it just because they say it less. The same could be said about feeling validation.
When the kids were little, we were so obviously needed. It wasn't a big leap for us to think that we were needed and our role was important. We were literally keeping these little people alive.
But as our kids grow up, they seem to need us less or need us in a different way. They may even tell us that they don't need us or don't want us involved. And then we think we're not needed, that we are not important.
And it's valuable to recognize that your self-belief doesn't have to change, even though what your role as a mom looks like might change. Now, the third mindset trap of the nurturer is the comparison trap. Again, the nurturer loves her children unconditionally.
She has empathy and finds a deep sense of purpose in this role. But she can't help but look at other families and the relationship other moms seem to have with their kids, and she begins to compare. She compares the connection she perceives other moms have with their kids, how much those kids listen.
She might even compare herself to other moms who seem to have it together more than she does. She'll think that maybe if she had kept up her career like other moms, then she wouldn't be having such a hard time with this transition. She might even see other moms struggling with the transition and worry that she'll turn out like them.
Again, comparison is 100% normal. We all compare. It's a basic instinct.
We want to know how to fit in, if we're doing it right. This comparison, noticing perceived differences between your life and other people's lives, comparison part is normal. The challenge comes when you start to make those differences, or more importantly, those perceived differences, when you start to make them mean something about you and your life.
For example, if you start to believe that somehow that other mom did it better than you did because their kids seem to be more open with them. This is such a powerful example of how the way our mind perceives the world around us can make us feel like we're not enough, as if it's just the truth. But the actual truth is, you can literally do everything right, and your teen could still not want to talk to you.
You could do everything according to the books, and your kid will still make mistakes and still not listen to you. So believing that whatever's happening is your fault, and that somehow other moms did it better, is only creating insecurity for you. It's not a productive pattern of thinking.
Finally, the nurturer can have such high standards for herself and her kids that she's vulnerable to perfectionism. The relationship and connection this mom has with her kids is so important, and the standards she holds herself to when it comes to supporting her kids' needs are so high that this mom can often feel like whatever she does isn't enough. Picture the nurturer and her heightened sense of empathy and compassion for her kids.
When she sees them in pain, she'll stop at nothing to want to help and support them. She might take the blame. She feels what they feel.
So nothing short of perfection allows her to give herself permission. And I'm going to use this again here. Nothing short of perfection allows her to believe, or give herself permission to believe, that everything's okay.
The interesting thing about perfectionism is it's not really about being perfect. It's about fear of failure, and the nurturer feels failing to support her kids above all else. But again, when you think about the ebbs and flows of our children's lives, it is impossible for it to be perfect all of the time.
And when we hold ourselves up against that highest standard, we're creating a situation in which we're constantly failing. So the question here is, how can we decide ahead of time what's enough? My friends, these mindset traps, the identity crisis, perfectionism, the comparison trap, they're not necessarily unique to the nurturer. But there are particular ways each of these counterproductive ways of thinking come up for moms.
I see the nurturer in every mom I meet. And I imagine you also see the nurturer in you. Unconditionally loving your kids, feeling compassion and empathy for them, trying your best to be flexible and adaptable to meet their needs.
And this has been and continues to be such an incredible gift that you give your child each and every day. In fact, it's a gift that you also have given yourself. And so as your child's needs change and they continue on their path to be more independent, can you give yourself permission to believe that you are loved, that your role as a mom still matters, and that you're still needed, that your role is important and valuable and will actually never end? Although the texture of the relationship you have with your child will very likely change over time.
You have weathered many seasons, my friend. And this is just one more season. But no matter what season you're in, you will always love your child.
And maybe this is the most important thing that they will always need from you. Can you believe that this is enough for your child and also for you? I want to invite you to imagine finding the peace, confidence, and tapping into the depth of your unconditional love for your child and for yourself, to trust yourself that you're loved and needed. To find this place, you have the opportunity to forge a new relationship with yourself.
And this is exactly the work we do in my coaching program, Mom 2.0. You created the unconditional love you have for your child. You created your role and identity as a mom. You fostered your ability to have empathy and compassion.
You decided to be adaptable and resilient and really worked hard to be patient. These strengths are all already within you, and none of them go away just because your child is growing up. You already know how to be the mom and woman you want to be.
Do you trust yourself to believe it?
Until next time, friends.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review and check out our coaching program, Mom 2.0, at www.thesmalljar.com. You have more power than you think, my friend.
