Remember how we grew up? "Follow your dreams!" "You can be anything!" "Never settle!" These mantras shaped our lives, and honestly, there's a lot of good in that. We've pursued careers, adventures, and self-discovery in ways our mothers and grandmothers often couldn't.

But then... motherhood hits. And suddenly, it's not about you anymore.

How We Got Here: The Shift Across Generations

Looking back, our grandmothers' generation typically lived within a different framework. Extended families often lived in the same neighborhood or even household. Child-rearing was a shared responsibility between mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and neighbors. The phrase "it takes a village" wasn't just a saying—it was literally how families functioned.

Our mothers' generation began the shift. As women entered the workforce in greater numbers during the 1970s and 80s, family structures started changing. Still, many maintained closer geographic ties to their families than we do today. Community connections, though strained, remained stronger than what many of us experience now.

Then came our generation—raised on a steady diet of empowerment messaging, technological connectivity, and unprecedented mobility. We were taught that fulfillment comes primarily through personal achievement and self-actualization. The focus shifted dramatically from community values to individual aspirations.

The Evolution-Society Disconnect

Let's acknowledge something important: the gains in personal autonomy, career opportunities, and life choices for women represent tremendous progress. No one's suggesting we go back to limited options or prescribed gender roles. The ability to define our own paths has been liberating and necessary.

But here's what's fascinating from an evolutionary perspective: humans evolved as communal creatures, particularly when it comes to raising children. For hundreds of thousands of years, child-rearing was never meant to be a solo endeavor. Anthropological research shows that traditional societies across the globe shared childcare responsibilities among multiple caregivers—what scientists call "alloparenting."

Our biology hasn't caught up with our social shifts. We're still wired for community support during the intense early years of parenthood, yet we've designed a society that often isolates new mothers in individual homes, expected to handle everything with minimal assistance.

This mismatch between our evolutionary programming and our modern, individualistic living arrangements helps explain why so many of us find motherhood unexpectedly overwhelming—we're doing something humans were never meant to do alone.

The Great Disconnect

Many of us have moved away from our hometowns to chase jobs, partners, or just different scenery. When the baby arrives, that geographic distance turns into:

"Mom, I can't just 'drop the baby off' for the weekend..." "No, I don't have anyone who can watch her while I get a haircut..." "Yes, I'm still in my pajamas at 4pm because there was no one to hold her while I showered..."

We've inadvertently built lives that make motherhood harder. Without the village that traditionally helped raise children, everything falls on our shoulders.

The Mental Health Toll

The extreme individualism we've embraced hasn't just complicated motherhood—it's affected our collective mental health. Studies consistently show that feelings of isolation and loneliness have skyrocketed in recent decades, particularly among young parents. We're more "connected" than ever through social media, yet experiencing unprecedented disconnection in real life.

Our grandmothers may have had fewer "choices," but they often had stronger support systems built into their daily lives. They didn't need to schedule playdates or join expensive mommy groups to find community—it existed naturally around them.

The pressure to "do it all" while maintaining our pre-baby identities creates an impossible standard. No wonder postpartum depression and anxiety rates continue to climb. We're trying to be super-employees, engaging partners, and perfect mothers without the support networks that made motherhood manageable for generations before us.

The Identity Earthquake

Let's be real - nothing prepared us for how motherhood would reshape our identity. After decades of "me time," self-care, and personal goals, suddenly there's this tiny human whose needs trump everything.

Want to sleep in? Nope. Craving a peaceful meal? Good luck. Need some alone time? What's that?

The shift from "my life is mine" to "my life revolves around someone else" is jarring. It's not that previous generations didn't feel this - they absolutely did - but they weren't raised with the same expectations of individual fulfillment that we were.

In many ways, our grandmothers expected sacrifice as part of womanhood and motherhood. While we certainly don't want to return to limiting women's options, there's wisdom in recognizing that certain seasons of life naturally require putting others first—a concept our individualistic culture rarely celebrates.

Finding Balance: Community Without Sacrificing Progress

The pendulum has swung too far toward individualism, leaving us isolated in our carefully curated, independent lives. But the answer isn't returning to the limited options of previous generations—it's finding a new balance that preserves personal autonomy while rebuilding community connections.

What helps is rebuilding that sense of community:

• Creating new "family" from friends in similar life stages
• Embracing vulnerability and asking for help
• Finding ways to maintain parts of your identity while embracing your role as a mother
• Recognizing that service to others, including your child, can be profoundly rewarding
• Building intentional communities where resources and childcare can be shared
• Challenging the notion that success means complete independence from others

Remember, you're not failing if motherhood feels harder than you expected. We're navigating terrain that looks different from what came before. Perhaps our generation's challenge is to take the best of both worlds—the expanded opportunities and choices we've gained, alongside the reconnection to community values that sustained our ancestors through the demands of parenthood.

The beauty is that we can choose both—personal growth AND community connection. Our evolution prepared us for collaborative child-rearing, and our future well-being may depend on reclaiming some of that collaborative spirit while preserving our hard-won autonomy.

What's been your biggest shock transitioning into motherhood? Drop a comment below