What Motherhood Taught Me About Gratitude
As a mom of four, my life is full of dishes, toys, shoes, and ever-growing piles of laundry that claim the dining room table. It feels like the moment I finish one cycle, the next begins. There’s no ‘being done,’ just a loop of chaos that resets itself daily.
Thankfully, there’s a growing movement of moms online who are choosing to share the unfiltered reality of family life. No spotless kitchens, no perfectly staged rooms, no fake “everything’s under control.” Just real moments, real mess, real humanity. Just normalizing being normal. Because the only thing worse than feeling like you’re drowning is believing that everyone else is swimming through the same waters with perfect composure.
The truth? I hate doing dishes. I hate folding laundry. I don’t find joy in these tasks, and I used to resent how never-ending they were. They weren’t going anywhere. They were fixtures of my life.
And one day, I decided to try something different.
Instead of letting the voices in my head gripe, complain, and resent how much time those chores consumed, I tried whispering a little gratitude to myself:
“How lucky am I to have a family to feed?”
“Thank goodness we have nourishing food to eat.”
“Look at all the warm clothes, towels, and blankets we have for our kids.”
And almost instantly, something shifted. Not only did I start to find more enjoyment in the tasks, I noticed I was moving through them more efficiently than ever.
Gratitude isn’t just a nice idea. It literally changes the brain. Neuroscience research shows that when we practice gratitude, the reward center is activated, especially the prefrontal cortex, the area that helps us regulate emotions and behavior.
Wherever you are as you read this, take a look around you. Maybe you’re sitting in your bedroom, on your couch. Is it messy? Cozy? Take an inventory not just of your surroundings but how you feel about them. We tend toward a scarcity mindset, not because we’re immoral or bad, but because we’re wired that way. Early humans evolved to survive, not to be content. In nature, complacency was dangerous. If you relaxed too much, you missed food. If you didn’t store resources, winter could kill you. Even in modern times, billions of dollars in advertising, social media, and consumer psychology rely on one message: “You are almost enough…but not quite.” You need the next product, the best body, to keep up with new trends. We’re taught that “enoughness” is always just out of reach.
We can choose a different mindset, though. Gratitude invites us to look at how much we already have: the warmth of the room, the roof overhead, the people we care for, the simple evidence of being alive and in motion. Gratitude for breath. Gratitude for this exact moment.
Each time you choose it, you strengthen that neural pathway, just like a muscle. And gradually, life feels less like something you’re trying to outrun and more like something you’re allowed to inhabit. You find yourself steadier. More resilient. More at peace with the ordinary.
Gratitude won’t wash the dishes for you, or magically fold the laundry. But it does soften the edges of life. It reminds you that beneath the chaos is meaning. That somewhere in the mess is the evidence of a life you once prayed for. And when you learn to see it through that lens, even the mundane becomes sacred.