My Kids Don't Need a Perfect Mother, They Need a Present One
Trail Notes | Movement & Motherhood
a note for the mothers carrying a lot
My Kids Don’t Need
a Perfect Mother
There is a version of you your children will remember. Not the one who got everything right. The one who looked them in the eye. Who laughed when something spilled. Who showed up as a human being, not a machine.
That version of you does not come from perfection. It comes from presence.
And sometimes, presence feels a long way away.
When sleep is fractured. When the invisible load keeps expanding. When you are feeding, cleaning, organising, remembering, problem-solving and meeting everyone else’s needs before you have had a moment to notice your own. You can move through an entire day without ever really landing in it.
This is not a call to do motherhood better. It is an invitation to come back to yourself within it.
Trail Note · 01
The trail is not an escape from your life
It can be easy to see time outside as an indulgence. A run that takes you away from the family. A walk that should have been used to fold washing, reply to messages or get ahead on tomorrow.
But movement and time outdoors can be a way of returning to your life with a little more room inside yourself. Not always. Not instantly. Not in a way that fixes the structural weight many mothers carry. But sometimes it creates enough space to hear your own thoughts again.
There are no lunchboxes to pack in the eucalypt shade. No family calendar on the ridgeline. No performance review on a muddy singletrack.
There is simply your body, your breath and the steady rhythm of putting one foot in front of the other.
Taking time for yourself is not a withdrawal from the people you love. It can be part of how you stay connected to them.
The point is not to earn your place in the family through more productivity. The point is to remember that you are in the family too.
Trail Note · 02
Presence is not calm all the time
Presence is not becoming endlessly patient, organised or serene. It is not never raising your voice, never feeling overwhelmed or always enjoying the season you are in.
Presence is noticing when you have left yourself behind — and giving yourself a way back.
It might look like
A ten-minute walk before the school pick-up.
A slow lap of the block after a difficult night.
Putting your phone away to sit with your child on the floor.
Saying, “I need five minutes,” and taking them.
Going for a run because you need to hear yourself think.
The dose does not need to be dramatic to matter. Research suggests that nature exposure and outdoor activity may support mood, stress and wellbeing, but they are not a substitute for practical support, healthcare or more equitable sharing of care. They are one small, available way of tending to your capacity. Read the research.
Trail Note · 03
Your children are watching how you treat yourself
Children do not need us to model self-erasure. They do not need to learn that care is something given endlessly to everyone else, with nothing left over for the person giving it.
They can learn something important when they see us move our bodies, ask for help, rest, apologise, begin again and make room for the things that steady us.
Not because movement makes us better mothers. It does not. But because meeting our own needs is part of being a whole person — and our children deserve to see that wholeness is allowed.
A different kind of modelling
Not: “I have to do everything.”
But: “I am allowed to have needs too.”
Not: “I need to get this run done.”
But: “I am taking some time to care for myself, then I will come back.”
A note from Samantha
Sometimes, it is enough that you went
I remember one of my first attempts at running after having my son. He was crying in the carrier, I was leaking milk and my legs felt like lead. I did not finish the run.
But something shifted anyway. I had chosen myself, even if only for a few minutes. I had remembered that my body and my mind were still mine, too.
Sometimes it is not about how far you go. It is that you go at all.
Reflection prompt
Where do I confuse perfection with presence?
What is one small way I can return to myself this week, without apology?
Evidence behind this Trail Note
Bettmann JE, Speelman E, Blumenthal E, Couch S and McArthur T. Nature exposure and adult mental health: a meta-analysis. The findings support the potential benefit of nature exposure for mood, stress and quality of life, while recognising that outcomes differ between people and studies. View the research.
make room for yourself too
Written by Samantha Gash
Her Trails is a place for women to move, explore and build a fuller relationship with themselves — through every season of life.
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