I'm not your mom
A reminder for others, and for myself
“Hey, Mom.”
My husband was talking to me. Not about me. Not relaying a message from one of the kids. He was addressing me directly.
Mom.
I stopped him.
“I’m not your mom.”
There’s a kind of shorthand that develops in families. When you’re talking to the kids about Grandma, you just call her Grandma. When my husband is directing one of our children to ask me something, he says, “Go ask Mom.”
That’s fine.
But somewhere along the way, the shorthand had crept from reference to address. And I didn’t like it.
So I had to articulate the difference out loud.
You’re allowed to refer to me as Mom when you’re talking to the kids. You’re not allowed to call me Mom. I am the mother of your children. I am not your mother.
I remembered a conversation from a previous leadership role. The head of school—a man, and not a parent himself—was talking about leadership style. He said, very clearly, “I’m not your dad.”
He didn’t want anyone to place him in that role. He refused to be the father figure.
At the time, I admired his clarity.
Then one day, a colleague said it to me directly.
“You’re like our mom,” she told me.
It landed wrong in my body before I could explain why. I thought of the role clarity my boss had expressed.
“I’m not your mom,” I pushed back. “I’m your boss. It’s different.”
A boss and a mom are not the same. A spouse and a mom are not the same. And yet—for women in leadership, especially mothers—there’s this constant slippage. People see woman. Leader. Caretaker. And their brains make a shortcut.
Oh. She’s like a mom.
What does this do?
It softens authority. It creates expectations of endless patience, unconditional nurturing, emotional availability at all times. It reframes professional relationships as familial ones.
It also erases boundaries.
It makes people forget that we have limits. That we’re not responsible for them in the way a mother is responsible for her children.
And sometimes, it makes us forget that, too.
Just like I had to say it at home, I had to say it at work.
I’m not your mom.
I’m the mom to three people. I’m nobody else’s mom.
I’m a sister. I’m a daughter. I’m a boss. I’m a colleague. I’m a coach.
I am many things.
But I’m not your mom.
And sometimes I have to remind myself of this as much as I remind others. I have to remember where my responsibility ends.
Not everyone’s needs are mine to meet.
Not everyone’s problems are mine to solve.
Not everyone gets access to the part of me I reserve for my children.
🕊️
SAM
I remember in my late teens/early 20’s, at times when I was in leadership roles with peers in college or colleagues in the early days of my career, people read that leadership and twisted it to “I can see you’re going to make a great mom.” At the time, that landed wrong for me…I was nowhere near ready for kids, and it felt bad. Interesting that this link (mom-leader/leader-mom) can be incorrectly spun in more than one way.
Definitely an important distinction to make. Thanks Sarah!