How Motherhood Changes Friendships and Self-Confidence

I thought becoming a mother at 37 meant I’d be emotionally bulletproof. I wasn’t some naïve twenty-something still figuring out who she was. I’d done the therapy, read the books, built a sense of self I thought could withstand anything.

But the moment I became someone’s mother, all that mental work unraveled faster than I could recognize myself. My anxieties and insecurities roared back. Those early days were filled with love, but also a quiet grief for the version of myself I thought I’d evolved past.

And that’s partly why I’m not nostalgic for the baby years. They were the most beautiful, yet the most emotionally disorienting months of my life, reminding me that healing is not a permanent state, it’s maintenance work.

In this article:

When Friendship Meets Postpartum Vulnerability

The Money Gap and the Quiet Shame of Comparison

Maternal Instinct, Maternal Doubt

The Body That Didn’t Feel Like Mine And Pressure to “Bounce Back”

Learning to Sit with the Discomfort

When Friendship Meets Postpartum Vulnerability

Becoming a mother stripped away layers of composure I didn’t realize I relied on. Suddenly, I wasn’t a confident, grounded woman. I second-guess my decisions and nearly everything made me cry.

My beautiful and successful best friend Kelly visited me at seven weeks postpartum with pregnancy news of her own. Our conversations, once effortless, turned heavy. Her casual comments about my feeding choices and the baby’s sleep habits cut deeper than intended. What I heard wasn’t advice; it was judgment. Or maybe just my own insecurity echoing back at me.

Motherhood has a way of testing even the most solid friendships. It exposes unspoken comparisons and magnifies old insecurities that had long been buried under adulthood.

Here’s what postpartum vulnerability looks like in real time:

• You lose your emotional armor. Everything feels personal.

• You want validation but resent needing it.

• You want to share your struggles but fear sounding like a bad mom.

• You envy the women who “have it together” while hating that you envy them.

• You tell yourself it’s hormones, but it also feels deeper than that.

The truth is, good parenting advice often misses the mark. Not because it’s wrong, but because it assumes we are all at the same place emotionally. Motherhood drags every insecurity you’ve ever had into the light, and the advice that sounds logical on paper doesn’t always fit the messy, hormonal, deeply human reality of living it.

The Money Gap and the Quiet Shame of Comparison

Kelly’s comment about my WIC-supplied formula seemed harmless to her. “My husband would never let me buy this one,” she said, scanning the label. It wasn’t meant to be cruel, but it was thoughtless, and it split open an old wound.

That formula wasn’t my first pick. It’s just what was covered; it was free. I didn’t even want formula. I wanted to fully breastfeed, but that didn’t go according to plan. And the brand I actually wanted would have cost nearly $300 a month. For Kelly, it would’ve been a casual purchase. For me, it humility and practicality.

That’s the psychology of money; it’s never just about numbers. It shapes how you see yourself and how you think others see you. When one mom doesn’t have to calculate the cost of every decision, and another does, it changes the entire landscape of motherhood. It quietly dictates who gets to “do motherhood right.”

Money-based insecurity during motherhood often looks like:

• Feeling guilty for needing help or assistance programs.

• Comparing what you can provide to what others can.

• Fearing your child will notice the gap someday.

• Equating financial worth with parental worth.

I had to remind myself that my son didn’t care what label was on his formula. He cared that I showed up, fed him, loved him, and kept him warm. Good parenting isn’t about resources. It’s about resourcefulness.

And no friendship, no matter how strong, is immune to the silent strain money can create between mothers navigating very different realities.

Maternal Instinct, Maternal Doubt

Kelly’s comments about my baby’s cries, “Sounds like he’s hungry” or “That’s his tired sound,” felt like tiny stabs. I wanted to shout, “He’s my baby. I know what he needs.” But instead, I just nodded. Because deep down, I wasn’t even sure I did.

Her confidence, that smug certainty only expectant mothers seem to have, collided with my fragile postpartum self-esteem. Suddenly, my instincts felt suspect, my decisions open for critique. I was someone whose sense of worth hinged on being seen as “good” at this.

Maternal doubt has its own rhythm:

• You question yourself, then question why you’re questioning yourself.

• You research everything until you’re paralyzed.

• You crave validation but hate how much you need it.

• You assume everyone else is doing it better.

I realized I wasn’t lacking instinct; I was lacking faith in myself. My version of motherhood made me anxious and impossible to be confident from day one. It took time to trust that “good enough” parenting is, in fact, excellent parenting. My baby didn’t need a perfect mom. He needed me. Messy, learning, and exhausted me.

The Body That Didn’t Feel Like Mine And Pressure to “Bounce Back”

In theory, I had accepted my new body. I expected softness and stretch marks. What I didn’t expect was how foreign it would feel. How touching my own body would make me flinch because it felt like someone had turned me inside out. Never mind how I looked; I couldn’t even sit comfortably.

When Kelly complained about pregnancy bloat while I was still bleeding through mesh underwear, it felt like salt in a wound. She was already discussing postnatal workouts and asked about my “plan to get moving again.” I didn’t want to discuss fitness tips; I wanted permission to exist without looking good.

The postpartum body is a battlefield of contradictions:

• You’re proud of what your body created, yet hate the mirror.

• You want to “bounce back,” but you need to heal.

• You crave rest but feel guilty for resting.

• You measure your worth in jeans sizes, even when you know better.

I didn’t have the energy to meal plan or count macros on four hours of sleep. Kelly’s questions weren’t malicious; just misplaced. But her comments reminded me that even among women who love each other, body politics can divide us.

Motherhood taught me to stop chasing the illusion of getting “back” to myself. The old me is gone, and that’s not a tragedy. It’s growth. I’ve come to realize we don’t need to look like we’re twenty to be beautiful. While I didn’t love my body then, I love it now. It carried me through the hardest transformation of my life.

Learning to Sit with the Discomfort

I never told Kelly how hurt I was. I knew my words would be filtered through hormones, exhaustion, and the unspoken competition. And in hindsight, it was the right call.

Instead, I chose to hold space for both truths:

• She hurt me. And she didn’t mean to.

• I felt insecure. And it wasn’t her job to fix that.

We didn’t know it seven weeks into my postpartum fog and her pregnancy glow that our lives, our motherhood, would always be different, but not easier or better. She went through her own struggles later, ones that aren’t mine to tell.

Here’s what I’ve learned since:

• Not every hurt requires confrontation. Sometimes reflection is enough.

• Comparison is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be corrosive. Awareness is power.

• You can love your friends and still envy them sometimes.

• Healing doesn’t mean you never feel small again. It means you know how to recover when you do.

Kelly and I are still friends. Our dynamic has changed, softened, matured. When I look at her now, I don’t see competition. I see another mom finding her way through her battles. Motherhood doesn’t just test your friendships; it reveals which ones are built to last.