I Needed Proof I Was a Good Mom

Why It Matters

The episode reframes common but unspoken parental anxieties, offering validation and reducing isolation for new parents while challenging cultural myths about effortless motherhood—insights that can inform healthcare providers, employers, and support networks. Confidence: 87

Summary

In this episode of Rattled, therapist and author Aaron Schlloman recounts how her identity as a high-achieving, certain person collided with the unpredictability of early motherhood. Expecting caregiving to come naturally, she instead faced steep learning curves—particularly around nursing, sleep, and the loss of control—and had to relearn flexibility and surrender. Schlloman describes specific early moments that shattered idealized expectations and forced a reframing of competence and success as a parent. The conversation normalizes the friction of new parenthood and reframes parenting skills as learned, not innate.

Original Description

You love your baby more than anything. So why does it sometimes feel like your baby… doesn’t like you?

In this episode, Dr. Becky talks with therapist, author, and mom of two Erin Schlozman about the moment early motherhood cracked open everything she thought she knew about competence, control, and what it means to be “good” at something.

Erin came into motherhood as someone who always hit the milestones: good grades, grad school, career, marriage. Then came a one-month milestone photo with her newborn son — and instead of the sweet picture she imagined, both she and her baby ended up crying on the nursery floor.

Together, Dr. Becky and Erin unpack the disorientation of new parenthood: the feeling that your baby’s crying is somehow a reflection of you, the pressure to “get it right,” and the clarifying realization that motherhood doesn’t follow a linear path.

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