Finding Your Way: A Compassionate Framework for Parenting Decisions
The postpartum period is perhaps the most transformative season of motherhood. It's also one of the most overwhelming as you navigate a constant stream of new parenting decisions —both big and small. That’s why we invited Libby Orrick , a licensed therapist specializing in perinatal mental health, to share her decision making framework in this Goldie guide. Her compassionate, values-based framework offers a grounding way to approach the decisions we face in those early months—so you can move forward with more clarity, confidence, and self-trust.
And while the postpartum period is a season of enormous change, it is also only the first in the many seasons of parenting, and we think this guide can be a valuable tool no matter how old your kids are.
The perinatal period is a tender time for a million reasons: hormones, physical changes, identity shifts, relationship strain, sleep deprivation, you name it. Add to this that every day you have to make hundreds of parenting decisions where there’s no clear right answer. Much of the conversation around the right way to parent stems from the emotional weight of cultural expectations, not research. And none of it seems to factor in the impact parenting decisions have on our well-being and capacity.
These decisions can feel weighty and deeply personal, yet we are also bombarded with dogmatic cultural messaging about what’s best. Why does it feel so heavy? Because it is your child, because you care, because you want to be a good mom.
Whether we realize it or not, we all carry expectations about what motherhood should feel like and what a good mother looks like. But what happens when these idealized actions make it harder to be a good mom? When it comes to moralized expectations of motherhood, the impact of these expectations on our mental, physical, and emotional health is rarely factored in.
When expectations exceed our capacity, shame grows and often pushes us toward culturally approved choices that aren’t individually sustainable, worsening sleep deprivation, mood, and overall functioning, which are the very things that make it much harder to show up as the kind of parents we want to be.The idea of maternal sacrifice being a prerequisite for motherhood is powerful. But motherhood is a marathon, not a sprint. We need it to be, above all else, sustainable.
I wrote this framework to offer a way to think about whether cultural myths and expectations align with your values and capacity, adapted in part from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy’s values clarification. It walks you through four questions to help you make postpartum decisions that are grounded in what actually matters to you and your real capacity, not just the “good mom” rules you’ve absorbed. After all, the best decisions will always be context-dependent.You’ll clarify your priorities, name the expectations you’re carrying, take an honest look at your limits, and then decide whether a specific expectation moves you toward or away from what you care about right now.
Decision-Making Framework
1. What matters most to me in the postpartum period?
Get grounded by keeping the most important things the most important things. Strip away the hows and the oughts, and drill down to what actually matters to you right now, in this moment. Where do you want your energy and focus to be as you step into this role? For most new moms I know, what matters most is bonding with their baby, keeping their baby safe and healthy, and feeling emotionally steady.
Action: Write down the top three things that matter most to you right now in terms of what you want to prioritize, not the tactics to get there. These will act as your anchors in decision-making.
2. What expectations have I absorbed about what a good mom should do in this situation?
Whether conscious or not, we all build a narrative in our heads about what a good mom looks like and how she acts. Most of these expectations are absorbed long before giving birth and they feel weighty and tied to morality (and martyrdom), which is why they are hard to question, especially in this very emotionally, physically, and hormonally tender period. These expectations come from the family you grew up in, how you were raised, your cultural background, social media, and films and TV, and are often rooted in culture, not science.
Action: To get you started distinguishing fact from fiction, ask yourself:
A good mom should always _____________
In my family, moms were expected to _____________
The moms I follow seem to _____________
My partner or relatives believe a good mom _____________
I am afraid people will think _____________ if I do not _____________
What do I tell myself a good mom would do in this situation?
After you write those down, review the list and reflect on which of these expectations, if any, align with your anchors right now, and which do not. Which feel judgmental or constraining?
3. What is my current capacity, and how would it be impacted by meeting this expectation?
Motherhood doesn’t magically erase our constraints and limitations postpartum, and there are always trade-offs to every decision we make, whether we acknowledge them or not. Accepting our limitations can sometimes feel like admitting defeat or lowering your standards, or letting people down, but denying them leads to more pain. The costs are real: neglecting your capacity constraints can erode mental, physical, emotional, and relational health, all of which makes it much harder to show up as the mothers we want to be. Naming the price of trying to meet certain expectations can feel like defeat or a moral failing, but it can also be liberating. Accepting your limits makes you more adaptable and helps you make healthier, more sustainable decisions for your family.
Action: Answer the following questions. Be as concrete as you can in weighing the impact:
Sleep: How many uninterrupted hours can I realistically get most nights this week? What is my minimum to feel human?
Time: How much time can I realistically spend on the core caregiving tasks across 24 hours without burning out? What is my limit for any single caregiving block and for total daily caregiving time?
Body: What pain or symptoms are present right now (pelvic floor recovery, incision healing, musculoskeletal pain)? What gets worse with the current plan?
Mood: Am I noticing anxiety, intrusive thoughts, irritability, numbness, or frequent crying? How often and how intense?
Support: Who can actually help this week, and when? Partner support, a relative, a night nurse, a postpartum visit. Be concrete.
Logistics: Do I have what I need for the plan I’m trying to follow: supplies, schedules, childcare coverage, transportation, cost? What is the bottleneck?
Relationships: How is the current plan affecting my patience with my partner or older kids? More connected, the same, or strained?
Note: If mood symptoms last longer than two weeks, if intrusive thoughts show up, or if you cannot meet basic needs, talk to your OBGYN, pediatrician, or a therapist.
4. If what matters most to me is ___, given my real capacity, does this expectation move me toward it or away from it?
If you go through these questions and find that the cultural expectation aligns with your capacity and supports what matters most, then great! You can still review your capacity constraints and see if there are small ways to make it easier. If the answer is no, it may be time to adapt your expectations to meet your current reality. You do not need to make huge changes all at once. Start small, give it a week, and see how it feels. Changing course to something more sustainable is not failure, it is discernment. Motherhood is a marathon, not a sprint.
Staying Grounded in Your Decision
Regardless of the decision you make, you will likely have moments of self-doubt or guilt. A common refrain from clients is that they feel like a failure in some way when they can’t meet the expectations they set for themselves. It makes sense, given cultural messaging, that new moms may feel this way, though it could not be further from the truth. Prioritizing your needs (and by extension, those of your family) over your expectations of what you “ought” to do is deeply challenging, but that adaptive strength allows you to do what best supports you and your family. It is also normal to feel relief and sadness at the same time once you decide. Remind yourself that regret is often fleeting and is not proof you made the wrong decision, just that these cultural and internalized expectations are deeply ingrained.
The expectations you feel like you’re “failing” to meet are not neutral, they are cultural. A huge part of the “I’m not enough” feeling comes from absorbed ideas about what a “good mother” should look like, plus the comparison trap, plus identity-level stuff about being competent, capable, hyper-reliable, and performing at a high level.
Even when we intellectually know we have capacity constraints and literal brain changes and hormones and sleep deprivation working against us, it is still really hard to accept it. Accepting it feels like defeat. It feels like lowering our standards, letting ourselves and others down. The “shoulds” and “oughts” get very loud. And when those identity pieces get activated, we treat capacity constraints like moral failings. We tell ourselves we should just work harder. But the problem is not effort. It is that everything is different.
Here are some troubleshooting tips:
When you fall into the comparison trap: Get off of social media. Or be particularly ruthless in how you curate your feed. Social media is basically a factory for what literary critic Lauren Berlant calls “cruel optimism.” You see the same kind of mom over and over again, perfectly put together, breastfeeding effortlessly, glowing, bouncing back, and your brain quietly files that away as the standard. You start aiming for it, even if some part of you knows it does not fit your body, your baby, your support system, or your mental health. It feels “optimistic” because it looks like something to strive for, but it is cruel because the thing you are chasing either is not real in the way it appears online, or it only exists for someone at the expense of their capacity in ways you never see.
When intrusive self-doubt creeps in, name it: “The story I am telling myself is …” Then return to your previously identified value anchors. You can also ask, “What would I tell my best friend if they were in this situation?”
When you’re feeling overwhelmed, a brief Mindful Self-Compassion reset can help. Place a hand on your chest and repeat: “This is hard. This is a moment of self-doubt. I am not alone in this; other mothers feel this way, too. May I be gentle with myself right now.” Then breathe in for four and out for six, for two to three rounds.
It can also help to write down the “why” behind your decision in your Notes app to reference when needed, and to identify a loved one in advance who can talk you through doubt.
If self-criticism creeps in: Ask yourself, “If your best friend were in your exact situation, would you call changing course uncaring? Or would you see it as loving?”
