THOUGHTS MOMS PARENTING TEENS AND ADULT KIDS ARE ASHAMED THEY THINK— “I FEEL INVISIBLE” | EP. 194
Welcome to the Almost Empty Nest Podcast, where we moms of teens and college kids reframe what letting go really means to feel more connected, confident, and at peace.
I'm your host, Master Coach Jennifer Collins. Have you ever had a thought as a mom and then immediately felt terrible for thinking it? Believe me, you're not alone, and you're truly not a bad mom for thinking it. In this series on the thoughts us moms are ashamed we think, I'm exploring these thoughts and where they're coming from. Because when you shift from judgment to understanding, that's when everything changes. Let's dive in.
Hello, my friend.
Have you ever walked into a room in your own home and felt like no one even noticed you were there? Your teens sprawled out on the couch with their headphones on, your husband scrolling through his phone. You're doing all the things. You're cooking dinner and cleaning up, managing the schedule and everyone's obligations.
But it's like no one sees you. On the one hand, you know, or at least you really hope, that your family loves you and appreciates you. But at the same time, it's like they totally take you for granted.
You can feel invisible in your own home. I was talking recently with a client, and she told me she came home from work the other night feeling exhausted. The kitchen was a mess.
No one had done anything to think about making dinner. The dishes in the dishwasher were clean but unloaded, and yet there were dirty dishes all over the counter. The laundry was still at the foot of the stairs, and it was clear that multiple people in her family had walked up and down the stairs, passing by the clean laundry basket.
Her husband was in his office on a call, and her kids were up in their rooms doing whatever they were doing. And everyone seemed to assume that someone else other than them was going to be magically cleaning up the mess or starting dinner. On top of that, she felt like no one had even noticed that she was late coming home from work.
She was actually so angry in that moment she wanted to scream. I mean, it was bad enough that no one had bothered to help with any of the chores while she was at work. But even more than that, she felt like she could just walk right back out the door, and it might be hours before anyone realized she was gone.
I've had many clients share some version of this story with me. This feeling like the only time their kids even notice them or engage with them is when they need something. These moms feel lonely and taken advantage of, and honestly resentful that they're doing everything to support their family and no one seems to care.
In fact, it's like all of their effort and hard work almost makes them feel more invisible. Because as long as these moms keep everything running on track, hoodies where they're supposed to be, pickups on time, dinners on the table, it's like their families can just happily go through life with no problem. But meanwhile, they don't even notice all of the hard work that it takes to make all those things happen.
What I've found in these conversations is that underneath the loneliness and resentment is actually a bit of shame. Because these moms are thinking, I let this happen. I basically trained everyone in this house to expect that I'm going to take care of everything.
And now here they are, having put in all this love and effort to support everyone and everything else, they still feel invisible because of it. And not only do these moms feel unseen, but they feel like it's somehow their fault. Have you ever felt this way? Maybe it's at the end of the day and everyone's silent, not talking at the dinner table, eating the food you cooked, but not acknowledging your effort.
Then everyone runs off after dinner, mumbling something about needing to study for a test or to make a phone call, and you're left clearing up the dishes, wondering how it's possible that you went to all this effort and not only did no one notice, but you're still cleaning up after them. Or maybe it's the weekend and you've planned and coordinated the family schedule. Yet once again, something comes up and you're the one who has to drop everything to make sure everyone has what they need or gets where they need to go.
Everyone else is off living their best life, and you're sitting there wondering, does anyone have a clue how much effort it takes to keep all of this going? Or maybe it's that moment at the end of the day when you look around and you wonder, when was the last time anyone asked about my day? Like, do they even care what I do or how I feel? We can feel it with our kids, but also with our partners. Like when you try to talk to your husband about something that you're worried about and he tries to tell you what to do or just changes the subject. You just wanted him to listen, but he seemed to want to get the conversation over with and just move on.
You're the one who's there for everybody else, but no one's really there for you. And you wonder, how did I let this happen? Because you know that you've said yes when you were tired or you didn't really want to, and you've taken care of things that you might have delegated because honestly, it was easier. You just wanted to avoid conflict, getting into a fight about getting something done again.
And honestly, you also wanted to take care of your family. But now somehow you've enabled the situation where your family takes you for granted. You feel invisible and you also start to blame yourself for allowing that to happen.
I'll be honest, I've been there too. I remember many nights when my boys were younger, standing in the kitchen after dinner. Everyone finished eating and the plates were still on the table, and somehow I was the one cleaning up.
My husband was watching TV and the boys were somewhere laughing, maybe doing homework, and I was just standing there cleaning up, realizing that no one else had even thought about helping. And what surprised me most wasn't that they hadn't noticed, but how angry I was at myself for not saying anything, for just quietly cleaning up again, stewing in resentment. And you know, a part of me thought, it's fine, it's easier this way.
But another part of me felt this resentment, like how did I become the maid? Why am I here cleaning up after everyone and everyone else gets to relax at the end of the day? The confusing thing about all of this is that we want to take care of everybody because we care about them. And if we're honest, we also want things to run smoothly. We want the house to be clean and we want everyone to have a nice dinner and we want our kids to be successful in school and to be able to take advantage of all of these activities.
And so if you find yourself taking things on and just telling everyone, I've got it. In so many ways, it's our love language. You want your kids to feel supported and your home to feel at ease and peaceful.
And these acts of service are ways we show our love. And let's give ourselves a little credit here because this instinct we have to take care of everyone else is also what makes us such incredible moms. But somewhere along the way, this instinct to care for everyone turned into something else.
I think it turned into validation. It's so interesting because I think of myself as a pretty strong independent woman. But somehow over the course of my marriage and motherhood, I fell into a very traditional gender role in my home.
It wasn't a conscious choice. I think it's just what so many of us are taught from the time we were little girls. We grew up learning that being good meant being helpful and kind and accommodating.
And these traits also earned us love and approval and a sense of belonging. And think about how early this starts. As young girls, we're praised for being such a good helper.
And we're told we're so mature when what that really means is that we didn't make a fuss or we took care of things on our own. And as we grew up, we watched other women around us, maybe our mothers or grandmothers or other moms constantly putting themselves last. And even if there's a part of us now that pushes against this, I do think there's a sort of cultural conditioning that told us this is what being a good woman looks like.
Selfless, capable, always there for everyone else. So by the time we became adults, and especially as we became mothers, it was almost like these patterns were automatic. We didn't even question them.
We measure our worth by how much we give or how well we can keep everyone else comfortable. And you know, society continues to reinforce this for us. When we're exhausted, people call us amazing.
And when we juggle a million things, they say, I don't know how you do it. In fact, we see other women seeming like they're doing all of the things and we're a little jealous. It's like we have this societal belief that a woman's strength lies in her ability to handle it all, to do it all.
And we take the societal conditioning with us into motherhood. This incredibly demanding caretaking role. And it becomes almost inevitable that we start measuring our worth by how well we care for everyone else.
And when everything goes well, when everyone's happy and taken care of, it feels like proof that we're doing a great job, that we're enough as moms. But when things fall apart, as they do inevitably, when someone's upset or when the house is a total mess, or when our kid is struggling, it feels like evidence that we're not doing it right, that we're failing, that we haven't done a good enough job at supporting everyone else and taking care of our families. And so what do we do? We try harder.
We give more, we do more, we try to fix everything, try to anticipate what could go wrong. And without even realizing it, we start to tie our sense of worth to the idea that everything and everyone else has to be okay. It's subtle, but incredibly powerful.
Because now this sense of validation, of our effort being enough, has become something we have to earn through our hard work. And then our own sense of peace and personal satisfaction becomes conditioned on how well we're managing everyone else's life and emotions. You can almost feel like we see worthiness as the reward for meeting everyone else's needs, instead of something we already have just for being who we are.
And that's where the invisibility starts. Because when your value comes from how much you do for others, your focus is always outward. And maybe there is a big part of that that involves our families taking us for granted.
We're just always there taking care of everything. Is it really their fault that they've gotten used to it? Maybe a little bit. But is it really our fault that we've let that happen? I want to offer you something to consider.
Because yes, I know from personal experience that it hurts when people you love don't acknowledge your effort. It would be really nice if they did. And actually, it would be even better if they would just offer to help or to take things off our plate without us even having to ask.
I get it. But what if this invisibility we feel isn't really about them not seeing us? What if it's because we've stopped seeing ourselves? Somewhere along the way, we stop being honest with ourselves about why we're doing what we're doing. We tell ourselves we're helping and supporting and holding everything together.
And we are. But sometimes we're also trying to prove something. Trying to feel valuable or needed or appreciated.
And look, it feels so good to feel needed. I have loved those moments in motherhood when my kids have come running to me as if I have all the answers. As if I was the most important thing in their world, who could solve any problem and take away all of the pain.
It has been such a gift of motherhood. But it also can become this dopamine hit that we're still chasing. Especially when those hits become less frequent now that our kids are older.
We pour ourselves into everyone else's needs and in the process we forget to ask, what do I actually want? What do I need? And I don't even mean this in some dramatic, life-defining way. I mean, we don't even ask ourselves what we want or need in the day-to-day moments of our lives. Like, what do I need right now, in this moment? Do I actually need to rest? Am I really hoping for the chance to connect with my family? Or do I actually want to say no here? Many of us don't even stop long enough to ask ourselves these questions.
We're so used to looking outward, watching our families to see what they need. So asking ourselves these questions almost feels strange or selfish. We're so focused on meeting everyone else's needs, thinking that we'll be okay if everyone else is okay, that we've forgotten how to ask ourselves what we want that's separate from all that.
In fact, it can almost seem like we don't have the luxury of sitting back and asking ourselves what we need, because there's always something else to do for someone else. So you keep shoving down that awareness of your own needs. What you might not realize is that when you stop asking yourself what you need, you start losing touch with who you are.
Is it just because we don't have time to worry about what we want? Or is it because we're so focused on everyone else's needs and goals that the line blurs between who we are and everyone else? But notice how it becomes almost impossible to ask for what you need, or to give yourself what you need, if you haven't even taken the time to really understand what you want for yourself. Because sometimes not checking in with yourself means that you gloss over the truth about why you do what you do. For example, at one point I realized I had to come to grips with the fact that I'd taken on a lot of the responsibilities at home because I felt like I could do them better, or at least the way I wanted them to be done.
To this day, I still do the laundry in the house because honestly, I can't stand the smell in my boys' room when their dirty laundry is sitting in there for days. I mean, I could wait for them to do it, or I could nag them to do it themselves. I could also choose to just put up with the smell, or I could just get it done and over with in an hour.
So here's the truth. I could sit here and I could beat myself up for enabling my boys and not teaching them to do their laundry and feel taken advantage of them because I do the laundry. Or I could just acknowledge that I'm doing it because I prefer doing it than smelling their rooms.
And by the way, both of my boys went to college and figured out how to do their own laundry. One of them does it two times a week and the other not so much. But no matter how often or little they do their laundry when they're away, I don't have to smell their rooms.
On the other hand, I hate cooking. I cooked as much as I could when my boys were still at home. But now, even when they come home on breaks, I rarely cook.
I finally came to terms with the fact that I only like to do it on special occasions. It's amazing how much of a pull of guilt I still feel when I don't cook, even when it's just my husband and me. It's like there's this voice in my head telling me I should be cooking dinner.
But after a long time falling prey to that voice of guilt, I finally see myself. I am just not a cook. And when I give into the guilt, I feel resentful and unappreciated.
But when I see myself and what I really want, I say, nope, I'm not cooking. And I let it go 100%. And you know what? No one in my family cares.
In fact, now that I'm honest with myself and them about what I really want, they actually appreciate it more when I cook because they know how I feel about it. And so they also know that if I'm doing it, it's because I really want to be doing it. This pattern of invisibility, of us not seeing ourselves, shows up in so many different ways in conversations with my clients.
For example, recently one of my clients told me she hates weekends because she spends them doing laundry and cleaning and running errands, doing all these tasks that she feels like she has to do to get everyone ready for the week. But when we really dove into it and we explored why she felt like she had to do all of this on the weekend, we talked about her obligations for the week and how it was actually possible for her to divide up those tasks during the week so she could carve out some time for herself on the weekend. But what that uncovered when she thought about what she would do with that extra time is that she didn't know what to do with it.
But actually, even more, she realized she didn't know how to rest without guilt. I've had the same thing come up with clients who struggle on vacations or with the empty nest, when there aren't as many things for them to do to support their families. Rest or stillness somehow feels wrong.
Is it self-worth we're looking for or validation? For each of us, it might be different. But we can use this busyness as a cover for something we need or something we're lacking, rather than really seeing ourselves and what we truly need. Other moms tell me that they feel like they have to change who they are around their husband or their kids.
Maybe they've been told they're too much, too emotional, too involved, or they ask too many questions. And so then they find themselves constantly holding those parts of themselves back, trying to play the role of who other people want them to be, making themselves smaller, actually, and in the process, disconnecting with who they are, telling themselves that who they are is somehow wrong. Then there are the moms who handle all of these complicated logistics for their own kids' lives, helping their kids go after their dreams.
But when it comes to doing the same thing for themselves, they feel paralyzed. They don't even know where to start. It's like we somehow know how to create purpose and joy for everybody else, but not for ourselves.
There are so many ways that this can manifest itself in our lives. But the bottom line is that somewhere along the way, we stop seeing ourselves. As you listen to this, you might be thinking, okay, I get it.
I need to see and appreciate myself. But also, how do I get everyone else to see me too, to appreciate everything I do a bit more? And look, I get it. I know it hurts when you feel unseen and unappreciated.
But here's the problem. Even when people say thank you, or when they offer to help every once in a while, it's not enough. In fact, if you were to really challenge yourself to think about whether or not people in your family ever say thank you, I'm willing to bet that they do.
Definitely not as often as you'd like or as much as you deserve. But every once in a while, they do say thanks. But it's not enough.
And the reason isn't that we're asking too much. It's truly because external appreciation and validation can't ever fill the void we create when we stop seeing ourselves. My friend, when you honor your own effort and trust your own worth, appreciation from other people becomes a bonus, not a requirement.
The truth is, you get to feel whole and valuable and enough, even if no one ever tells you that it's true. Truly, your worth isn't found in the next dishwasher you unload or the next time you drop your kid off at practice. It doesn't even come from someone else saying, I love you, mom.
Although hearing that never gets old. My friend, your worth, your value, and your merit in being seen is within you no matter what. So your work isn't to figure out how to make other people see you differently.
It's about learning how to see yourself clearly, with compassion, without the filter of guilt or obligation. Because when you truly see yourself, and when you value your own contributions and effort, you show up differently in your own life. Because you start to set boundaries coming from what you truly want and need.
You show up to your life asking for what you need without needing to apologize for it. And you also give and do these acts of service, not because you need to prove anything, or because you feel like it's expected, or because you have to, but simply because it's what you're choosing to do. And my friend, when you start seeing yourself, that's actually when other people start seeing you more clearly too.
So maybe this week, instead of wondering when the people around you will finally start to see you and appreciate you, I want to invite you to start seeing yourself. Acknowledge all of the ways you already show up, every day of your life, all of the love that you give, and the strength that it takes to keep it all together. And then ask yourself, what do I actually need right now? Maybe it's permission to stop, to rest.
Maybe what you're really looking for is connection, or the strength to say no. You don't have to overthink it, but just try to tap into and listen to what you really need right now. This is the work of this next chapter of your life, learning to give yourself the validation you've been looking to other people to give you, and trusting that you're already enough, just as you are.
My friend, if you've ever felt invisible in your life, then it's time for you to start seeing yourself. And if you're not sure where to start, reach out and let's talk. Until next time.
If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to check out my next free masterclass. There's a link in the show notes. You have more power than you think, my friend.
