The message about motherhood the media desperately wants you to miss

On a recent podcast, Jen Fulwiler—author, comedian, and mother of six—said something that stopped me in my tracks.

“God, I love being a mom,” she said with the kind of unselfconscious joy that you don’t hear often enough in our culture. She went on: “I was so alone my entire life. I finally have my friends. I finally have my community that I never had. They’re my friends and my squad and it’s so wonderful.”

That line—the squad part—hit me like a wave. Because I knew exactly what she meant.

Jen has always been an inspiration to me. I was pregnant with my first when she had her sixth, so in many ways, she was already far down a road I was just beginning to consider. She made it look possible, and even more than that, she made it look fun. She wasn’t presenting herself as the kind of mother who had always dreamed of a big family, who grew up babysitting or crocheting tiny booties. She was practical and funny and honest—and joyful. It was that joy that stuck with me.

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I didn’t come to motherhood expecting healing. In fact, I came to it wary of what it might stir up. My own childhood wasn’t exactly filled with stability or warmth. My mother, who raised me alone, was sick for much of my life. After a long battle with an autoimmune disorder, she passed away when I was sixteen. My father died by suicide when I was nineteen. Just like that, both of my parents were gone. And without siblings, I was essentially alone (though I had incredible cousins who stepped into the breach).

When you lose your family of origin so young, you learn to build your own scaffolding. I had to figure out how to survive, how to make decisions, how to be an adult in the world with no safety net. The loneliness of that kind of loss doesn’t just come in waves—it settles in. It becomes the background noise of your life. And for a long time, I didn’t imagine that would ever change.

Then I had children.

It didn’t happen all at once, but something in me started to shift. Where there had once been a hole, something new was growing. A warmth. A rhythm. A home.

There’s something almost subversive about saying “I love being a mom” in 2025. We live in a time where motherhood is too often framed as martyrdom or misery. 

I don’t place the burden of healing on my children; that’s not their job. But the truth is, they have healed me. Just by being who they are. Just by letting me love them. Just by letting me try.

I think of Jen’s words “I finally have my friends, my community, my squad” and I smile because I have that now, too.

It’s not that I don’t still parent. I guide. I set boundaries. I say “no” (a lot). I’m not trying to be the “cool mom,” and I don’t want to be my kids’ best friend in the way we sometimes mock on sitcoms. But I am raising people I genuinely enjoy. People I want to be around. And most days, that feeling is mutual.

We laugh together. We go on walks. We share inside jokes and read books aloud and blast music in the car. I have a house full of life and energy and connection. I used to dread going home to an empty apartment. Now, I sometimes linger in the car before walking into a loud house just to soak up the peace but I never dread what’s inside. Because what’s inside is love.

Our culture talks a lot about how exhausting motherhood is. And it is. There are days when the dishes don’t end and the whining never stops and you feel like all you did was referee arguments and sweep up Cheerios. But that’s only part of the story. The other part, the part that doesn’t make it onto social media nearly as often, is how profoundly fun it can be. How life-giving. How healing.

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There’s something almost subversive about saying “I love being a mom” in 2025. We live in a time where motherhood is too often framed as martyrdom or misery. You’re supposed to talk about how touched-out you are, how much wine you need just to survive the bedtime routine, how suffocating the mental load is. And yes, all of that can be real. But it’s not the whole truth.

The truth is also this: I love being around my kids. I look forward to them coming home from camp. I count down to the end of the summer—not because I hate their camps, but because I miss them. Come fall, they’re back home with me, homeschooling.

I genuinely like them. And I like who I am around them.

Motherhood gave me more than a new identity. It gave me the kind of family I had long thought I’d never have again. one I didn’t know I wanted or needed. And it gave me the opportunity to build something that didn’t exist in my past: a home where love is stable, and safety is a given, not a hope. Providing that loving, stable home to my children, that I never had, is healing, too

It’s strange how often we undersell that. How often we whisper about the joys of parenting like they’re secrets we’re not supposed to admit in polite company. But I think it’s time we started saying it out loud. Not to sugarcoat the hard stuff, but to honor the good. To let women know that motherhood isn’t just a series of sacrifices, it can also be a source of strength. It can even be… fun.

Jen Fulwiler’s words reminded me that I’m not alone in feeling this way. That for those of us who came to motherhood with some bruises and battle scars, there can be unexpected redemption. That maybe, like Jen, we were lonely for a long time. And maybe we found, in our children, not just the next chapter, but our people.

My squad.

And they’re not just healing old wounds, they’re helping me write a new story. One that starts not with loss, but with laughter.

This column was first published on Substack’s The Mom Wars: Musings on parenting, marriage, and relationships from Bethany Mandel & Kara Kennedy.

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