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Motherhood is often presented as something that will come naturally. You will ease into it. You will feel intuitive and fulfilled. You will recognize yourself in this new role without much friction. But for many women, that story falls apart quickly once real life begins. I sat down with the therapist and content creator Vanessa Spinarsky to have an honest conversation about what happens when motherhood collides with identity, nervous system overload, and unrealistic cultural expectations. Her words resonated deeply because they name experiences many mothers quietly carry but rarely feel safe admitting. Vanessa is a registered social worker, a therapist, and a mother of two. She is also known for her honest, unfiltered reflections on Instagram, where she talks about motherhood without pretending it is always joyful or graceful. “Being on a guest on a podcast is one of my favorite things to do,” she shared early in our conversation, and that openness set the tone for a discussion grounded in truth rather than performance. A Childhood Shaped by Curiosity, Creativity, and Loss Vanessa’s journey into therapy began long before professional training. As a child, she was drawn to both storytelling and understanding people. “I remember very distinctly, the two of them were journalism and psychology,” she said, recalling a school assignment that required her to research two careers. Looking back, those interests now feel prophetic, as her current work blends writing, observation, and deep emotional insight. Growing up as an only child with a single mother gave her a rich inner world. She spent much of her time creating, imagining, and observing. But when she was eight years old, her life changed abruptly. “When I was eight years old, my dad unexpectedly passed away and he went to work one day and he didn’t come back,” Vanessa shared. At that age, she did not have the tools or language to process what had happened. “I didn’t have the language for what I was experiencing or what I was feeling, and my mom really didn’t talk about it,” she said. “Grief wasn’t something that we really talked about in our home.” That unprocessed loss became a quiet undercurrent in her life. Years later, when she chose social work, she realized that the decision went deeper than wanting to help others. “Underneath, subconsciously, I think I was like, I’m trying to understand my life, and I need to make sense of what happened to me,” she said. Therapy, both personal and professional, became a way to understand rather than fix. “I always thought it was about fixing myself,” Vanessa explained. “I realized that over time, it wasn’t that there was something wrong with me and that I needed to be corrected or solved. What I found was something really different. I wanted to understand.”  When Motherhood Disrupts Identity Vanessa is the mother of a young daughter and son. “I have a little girl, she’s four and my boy is two years old,” she said. “It was a big transition.” She does not soften what that transition felt like. “Motherhood rocked me,” she said plainly. “My transition to motherhood was very disorientating for me.” In one of the most striking moments of the conversation, Vanessa named how profound that shift was. “It actually, I would say was more disorientating than losing my dad when I was eight,” she said, not because that loss was insignificant, but because motherhood arrived when she already had a fully formed identity. “I thought that I had a fully formed identity, a career, I had a sense of who I was. And then that all just kind of came crashing down all at once.” She expected motherhood to feel instinctive, but it did not. “Nothing about becoming a mom felt instinctive to me,” Vanessa said. “I felt anxious and I felt rigid and I felt tensed and constantly like I was doing something wrong.” Even qualities she knew she possessed, like compassion and nurturance, felt inaccessible in those early months. The Social Media Surveillance of Moms Although Vanessa was not a social media creator when she first became a mother, she still felt its influence deeply. “What surprised me about that during that time is the constant surveillance that came with motherhood through social media,” she said. Even without posting, she absorbed endless messages about what a good mother should do. “I felt like I was being watched constantly,” she explained. “I felt like I was constantly absorbing these rules about what moms were doing, what made a good mom, what a bad mom does.” Rather than increasing confidence, that exposure heightened anxiety. “Instead of becoming more confident as a parent, I became more anxious as a parent,” she said. She also pointed out how quickly motherhood becomes loaded with expectations. “What surprised me is how moralized motherhood is,” Vanessa said, describing how complex human experiences are flattened into right versus wrong, with little regard for context, nuance, or lived reality.  In this episode of Trust Me Mom (Season 2, episode 33) available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, Vanessa Spinarsky shared her personal story of loss of her father, what led her into social work, and how motherhood shook her sense of identity. Together, we unpacked the reality of postpartum burnout, the pressure and “surveillance” moms feel on social media, why it’s normal to not enjoy every moment, and how shame gets projected in parenting spaces. We also dove into the mental load, inequality at home, and what partners can do that actually helps: acknowledge reality without debating it. Redefining Progress in a Constantly Shifting Life
Many mothers describe parenting as an endless cycle of catching up, only to fall behind again moments later. Vanessa connected this exhaustion to identity and unrealistic expectations of progress. Before motherhood, she had built a sense of self around being strong, capable, and holding everything together. “I built this identity before motherhood of, ‘I don’t have space to fall apart. I need to hold everything together,’” she said. Postpartum made that identity unsustainable. “Postpartum hit and I couldn’t hold that together anymore,” Vanessa shared. “I was looking fine on the outside, but I was crumbling and falling apart on the inside.” Asking for help felt impossible. “I didn’t want to ask for help because I thought if I had asked for help, then that meant that I was failing,” she said. Over time, she realized that motherhood demands a new definition of progress. “Progress in motherhood doesn’t look like being caught up,” Vanessa said. “It looks like adapting.” She reframed failure as responsiveness. “The fact that things are shifting doesn’t mean that you’re failing,” she explained. “It means that you’re responding to a very living, breathing, changing life.” Her metrics for success changed. “Progress is different for me now,” she said. “Can I notice what I need sooner? Can I recover faster when things go sideways? Can I be a little bit less hard on myself when I’m messy?” Then she named a truth many mothers struggle to accept. “That doesn’t mean that you’re behind,” Vanessa said. “It means that motherhood isn’t something that you complete. It is something that you continuously stay in relationship with.” Naming the Truth About Not Enjoying Every Moment One of the most validating parts of the conversation came when Vanessa spoke about something many mothers feel but rarely say. “I know other moms are feeling this way,” she said. “I know I’m not the only one, but there are seasons of motherhood where you actually don’t enjoy spending time with your kids.” She immediately clarified what that truth does not mean. “That doesn’t mean that you don’t love your kids, it doesn’t mean that you don’t care about them,” Vanessa said. “It just means that this is really draining.” She described the experience vividly. “It feels exhausting and disorienting and I can’t catch my footing,” she said. “It does feel like I’m just getting through the moment, just surviving the moment.” She explained why those years can feel so relentless. “Kids emotions, they’re all emotion,” Vanessa said. “Nothing that these kids are doing makes sense to your adult brain.” Parents are constantly translating feelings, soothing meltdowns, and trying to stay regulated themselves. “You’re translating their feelings,” she said. “You’re trying to help regulate when they’re melting down over the wrong cup. And that takes so much energy, so much energy from you.” She also acknowledged that these struggles are not always tied to age alone. “Sometimes there is neurodivergence,” Vanessa said. “Sometimes your child just has a harder time regulating themselves. They have really big feelings.” In those seasons, joy often shows up quietly. “A lot of moms aren’t enjoying motherhood in these big sweeping joyful type of ways,” she said. “They’re enjoying motherhood with these little moments, these micro little moments.” Regulation, Repair, and Taking Space Without Shame Vanessa has been criticized online for encouraging mothers to take breaks when they are overwhelmed. She was clear about what she has learned through both lived experience and clinical work. “Being physically there with your kid while you’re dysregulated does not help your kid,” she said. “That doesn’t help them at all.” Children sense dysregulation. “If you don’t have that in your body in that moment, your kid is gonna feel that,” Vanessa explained. Forcing yourself to stay when you are past capacity can escalate rather than soothe. “The most loving thing that you can do for yourself and for your kid is not forcing yourself to stay in those moments,” she said. Repair matters more than perfection. “Even when I do mess up, it’s coming back in later and repairing,” Vanessa said, naming the moment honestly and reconnecting after the fact. Shame, Judgment, and the Pressure to Perform Motherhood Shame is a central theme in Vanessa’s work. She explained that shame in motherhood is not only internal. “Shame can also be outward,” she said. “When someone feels shame in themselves and they don’t want to feel it, it turns into judgment.” Much of the criticism mothers face, especially online, comes from unmanaged shame projected outward. “A lot of the mom shame we see is actually unmanaged shame from somebody else being projected onto us,” she said. Living under constant evaluation keeps mothers in a heightened state of stress. “There’s a feeling that you’re constantly being watched and evaluated at all times in motherhood,” Vanessa explained. “You’re not parenting from trust. You’re parenting from fear, from fear of getting it wrong.” She emphasized an important distinction. Outside of abuse and neglect, much of what gets policed is simply difference. “Just because we’re different doesn’t mean that’s dangerous,” she said. Mental Load, Validation, and Being Seen When we discussed mental load, Vanessa emphasized that acknowledgment alone can be deeply regulating. “I still feel like I am carrying mostly the mental load of our house and the anticipating and the remembering,” she said. Her request was not about blame. “I just want it to be acknowledged and I just want it to be named,” Vanessa said. Validation reduces isolation. “These comments are my love language of just being noticed and my reality being validated,” she explained. She offered a simple but powerful shift for couples. “Can we shift from blame to acknowledgement?” Vanessa asked. “That’s going to land so much differently in your relationship.” Nervous System Flexibility and Rethinking Rest Vanessa closed the conversation by reframing why rest feels so elusive for mothers. “A lot of moms don’t struggle because they’re weak or that they’re doing something wrong,” she said. “They struggle because their nervous systems don’t get enough chances to power off.” Instead of calm, she focuses on range. “It’s not about being calm all the time,” Vanessa explained. “It’s about having range.” Rest does not have to look a certain way. “You don’t have to experience real rest,” she said. “Coloring can be a form of rest for you.” Most importantly, she reminded listeners that this work takes time. “It’s taken me four years,” Vanessa said. “I would say it’s taken me about five years to get a good handle on rest.” A Final Reflection Vanessa’s message is not that motherhood should feel joyful every moment. Her message is that mothers are human, and shame keeps them disconnected from themselves and each other. When truth is spoken without judgment, there is space for regulation, repair, and real connection. As she said clearly, “The goal of motherhood isn’t to enjoy every moment. The goal is to stay in relationship with your kid.” If you are in a season that feels exhausting, disorienting, or like survival, you are not failing. You are responding to a living, breathing, changing life.
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