The ones who feel slightly out of step with the world around them — not in a dramatic way, not in a way anyone would necessarily notice, but in the quiet persistent sense of being a little bit off from the dominant frequency.
The parents who find small talk at school pickup genuinely exhausting. The people whose faith is important to them in a culture that finds that slightly awkward. The ones who would rather have a long conversation with one person than circulate a party. The ones who feel most themselves in their own home with their own people.
Hello. I am one of you.
I’ve been thinking lately about how much energy we spend trying to smooth ourselves into shapes that feel more acceptable. Laughing at the right moments. Having the right opinions about things. Being the right kind of mum — whatever that means in the particular social ecosystem you’re navigating. If you’ve ever felt the particular exhaustion of not quite belonging, these encouraging words for mums who feel like they’re not enough might speak directly to where you are.
It’s exhausting. And it’s not honest.
I’ve been reading a lot of Brené Brown lately (the Australian academic community has embraced her work quite enthusiastically, which I find reassuring), and her writing about belonging versus fitting in has cracked something open in me. Fitting in requires you to assess what’s valued and present yourself accordingly. Belonging requires you to be yourself and be accepted as that. If you’re looking for books that explore this kind of honest self-examination, there’s a list of comfort reads for mums that are genuinely nourishing rather than instructional.
Most of us are trying very hard to fit in. Most of us are quite hungry for belonging.
I don’t have a tidy resolution to offer. But I do want to say: if you are an oddball — if you don’t quite fit the mould of what a parent or a Christian or a woman is supposed to look like — you are in excellent company here. The mould is largely imaginary anyway. And if faith is part of what makes you feel slightly out of step with the world around you, these Bible verses for anxiety and worry are a quiet place to return to when the noise gets loud.
Australian mum, blogger, and champion of ordinary days. I write about faith, family, homemaking, and the small joys that make life worth slowing down for.
