Real Talk: Unspoken Truths w/ Tamara Eldridge

This week on Nailed It Motherhood, Tamara Eldridge sits down for an intimate solo episode sharing the unspoken truths many mothers carry silently.

From becoming a mother before feeling emotionally, financially, or mentally prepared… to grieving former versions of yourself while loving your children deeply… Tamara opens up about the emotional weight, identity shifts, overstimulation, invisible labor, and pressure mothers face every day.

This episode creates space for honesty without shame and vulnerability without judgment. It’s a reminder that admitting motherhood is hard does not make you ungrateful — it makes you human.

If you’ve ever:

•  felt overwhelmed by emotional labor, 
•  needed a break without guilt, 
•  missed who you were before kids, 
•  wanted support instead of advice, 
•  or struggled to feel seen while carrying everyone else… 

this conversation is for you.

Because healing begins when moms stop pretending they’re fine.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Today, I'm here alone, just me, to talk to you with real talk. I want to talk to you about the unspoken truths in motherhood. Those are the things that a lot of us are thinking, but maybe we just are afraid to say. Before I begin, I want to say this very clearly. This conversation requires empathy. If conversations that are honest about motherhood make you uncomfortable, or if vulnerability immediately turns into judgment for you, or if you believe moms should just silently carry hard emotions without speaking out loud, this episode might not be the one for you. So I invite you to go ahead and close out because we don't want that space in our community today. Today I'm telling the truth about some of the harder parts of motherhood. The parts many women will whisper privately about, but rarely say out loud. This space is created for psychological safety, for honesty and healing, and for growth. That's all we need in this space today because I want to make sure that I keep it safe for anyone who wants to return. We can deeply love our children and still admit that motherhood can feel overwhelming. It can feel lonely, it can be exhausting, and it can shift our own identities at times. I ask after every episode with my guest, is parenting hard? And rarely do I ever get parents that say, absolutely not. So today I'm speaking openly because I have not had the opportunity to speak to you one on, however many are listening, about my experience as a mom and my thoughts and my true feelings about what motherhood truly means to me. It's not because I don't love being a mother, because I really truly do. I believe moms deserve spaces where they don't have to pretend, and that's why Nailed It Motherhood Podcast is created in the way it has been. If this conversation doesn't resonate with you again, I invite you back to the next episode when I sit down with guests to hear different parenting journeys and their perspectives. But today, this episode is for those moms who need room to let their hair down, to breathe, and need room to excel. So, this is not a perfect mom episode. This is a truth-telling episode, and it's going to start with me. You can love motherhood and still struggle within it. Today I'm going to speak about the things that many moms feel, and I'm going to start with me. So on Tuesday, I had an amazing opportunity to go and watch one of the podcasts that I listen to weekly, the Mom and Sten Podcast. And they had a segment where they asked us to come up to the stage and ask a tough question for the street therapist. And I don't know why I felt so vulnerable that day that I decided I was going to get on stage and open up my heart and pour out and expose and show everything. But I asked a question in front of all of these strangers that really made me think afterwards. And a part of that was how I became a mom. So I did not plan to become a mom. And if you know my story, you know that it is certainly not pretty how I became a mom. I try to often protect the way I became a mother, and I shared more on that platform because all they knew was my first name, and many of them do not know that I host Nailed It Motherhood podcasts. But I won't share too, too much on this platform simply because I want to protect my child. So I will share the basis of how I became a mother here. I will share the basis of the next part of my question here. But those are some unspoken truths that after the show, people came up to me and they said, Thank you for sharing that. Or you don't understand how important that was to hear because so many moms go through that. And it really sat with me for the last few days. And I said to myself, Why don't we feel like we can talk about it? Why don't we feel we have a safe space where we can begin to heal by opening up our mouths with the things that are burdening us internally? So I want to have that space here. Again, if this is a space where you're going to be judgmental, I don't really want you in this space today. As much as I love to have your support, we don't need that type of energy in this space because we do want to continue building a community. But like I said, we are now talking about the expectations of being a mom when you weren't really planning on being a mom. I grew up very Christian, very Christian. So I knew I shouldn't be having sex before marriage. I knew all the things. But let's be real, I wasn't the only one doing it. And there's this type of scrutiny that comes when women are having sex unwed that does not come with men. And I think because of it, men are a little bit less shameful in some of their actions, and they don't carry regret with what they've done and how they get what they want. So the way I came about um being pregnant was not the best. I was not in a relationship, but we tried to make it work, and we found out that this was not going to work. And because of that, and it was my decision that it was not going to work, um, because of that, my pregnancy was very hard. There was a lot of distress and a lot of turmoil. On top of that, I lost a lot of people. And I've talked about this many times on the podcast. I lost a lot of people during my pregnancy, and I'm talking about family and friends. Um, no deaths, but really grievable friendships that were very, very strong and long-term friendships that I did not understand why they kind of just fizzled out. And I found out later down the line, but during that time of pregnancy where I felt like I needed people the most, it just didn't make any sense. But I didn't have time to sulk. So I was experiencing a lot of trauma before becoming a mom. I also had lived a very dark season of my life right before I got pregnant. That was whenever I had a blood clot, turned into PE cluster, um, where I was hospitalized and could have died, had a swollen heart, stayed in the hospital for four days, I begged to see the image, and it took them three days to finally show me that it wasn't just one blood clot in my lungs, it was several clusters pack it, um, packed behind my lungs. And it was very scary. There were a lot of other things that were going on that I could probably write a real book about, and I'm considering parts of that, but I don't know if I want to share that much darkness of my life because that was a lot. Um, so when I became pregnant, it was a wake-up call. It was a wake-up call for me. I actually stumbled across this sticker today that I felt like it was perfect for this moment of my podcast episode. And the sticker says, Behind every strong woman is a story that gave her no choice. I wanted to give up before I got pregnant. Um, and I knew deep down inside I have to remember who I am, I have to remember whose I am, I have to remember who called me, but my life was not pretty. My life was not enjoyable. Nothing was going well for me before I got pregnant. And I mean nothing was going well for me before I got pregnant. I knew that my time had expired in Philadelphia and I knew that it was time to go. But one thing I was not thinking about was becoming a mom. I knew that my life was so ugly that I did not want to be a mom. I didn't even know if there was going to be hope for me to find a good person to be in a relationship with, let alone make a baby. But becoming a mom out of wedlock at that time, I had no choice. So I had to be strong and I had to focus on okay, I am in no position to raise a child. What does this look like for my child? But my child, my beautiful baby girl, forced me to turn back to God and remember who I was again and truly take it seriously. So I'm not going to lie, I don't know if I changed for me, I changed for my child, and everything that it took became an emotional adjustment of becoming a mom. Everything about my life was well, I need to make more money. I was only working part-time, I was driving for a lift to make ends meet. Um, I need to figure out what that looks like because I can't afford a child when I had her. Um I really wanted to move to Atlanta to pursue acting. But I knew I'm already in a city where I don't have family. What does that look like if I moved to another city where I know absolutely nobody to pursue acting and I just had a baby? So that changed the trajectory of my life. So I lost control of my timeline and the decisions that I was making for me because I had somebody else to look after. I wasn't prepared emotionally, mentally, or financially. And let's be honest, it took a long time before I actually started therapy. It took a long time before I actually went back to talking to God like I should have, a long time. So my emotions weren't in check, my mental wasn't in check, my finances weren't in check, and it really didn't start until she was born. Even during my pregnancy, I was in so much trauma, I was probably crying more than anything. So who knew what the future was going to actually look like? It is truly by the grace of God that I even made it through my pregnancy and that my baby came healthy because I put her through a lot of stress and anxiety because of all the stress and anxiety that I was going through. So I have been challenged with loving my child while grieving who I was, while grieving who I wanted to become before I walked into my dark season, while grieving the season that I went through and trying to celebrate getting out of it before she got here. So she was not a part of the plan. And I thank God for her because I don't know that I would have continued to follow as strongly as I did. I think God did what he had to do at that time and sent her when he sent her, because I might have slipped again. I might have met the wrong person who would have hurt me. I might have been so gullible and done something stupid to harm myself and not do what I'm called to do, which I am walking in now. So, you know, sometimes motherhood does begin before you're ready. Um, when you're doing things that you are gonna do to get pregnant, yep, it could happen. But sometimes God does step in and say, Listen, this is what I need for you. And so because of that, I was not prepared to be a mother, but it was motherhood that saved my life. Um, so the unspoken truth is I wasn't prepared and I didn't even know if I wanted children, but I now know that I needed a child. So I this is a reminder that two things can be true. You can both be very, very grateful and have much gratitude for being a mom, but you can also carry some type of grief about how you became a mother and about when you became a mother. And it's how you navigate it and how you heal from it that truly matters. And once you become a mom, the emotional labor never turns off. And that is unspoken truth number two. Sometimes I need a break from everyone, and I mean complete break. My mind is in mental overload often, and I love the fact that I finally am getting more vacation days. I love the fact that you know I'm not using all my sick days, I love the fact that I have personal days to take, but sometimes taking those days does not mean that I'm also truly getting a vacation or a personal day or even a sick day. Being a mom means that I have to work nonstop. I'm at work working on my motherhood job because sometimes I'll get emails or calls from the teacher, and the first thing that happens whenever you get a call in the middle of the day is your heart starts to drop or your cheeks get hot. It is not easy always thinking about someone else, and sometimes I do want to just throw my hands up and say, I just want to take a long break away from everyone, turn my phone off, and just trust that they all got it. Um my daughter teaches me so much. She is the one of the most creative children that I will ever know. Um I and I thought I was creative, but I don't think you can get more creative than her. But the problem is she is on 200 from the moment she wakes up. Okay, I won't say the moment she wakes up because it takes a little bit to rever up. But from the moment she gets started after she wakes up to the moment she talks herself to sleep, because that's the only way she's going to sleep, is when she stops talking. She's on it. She's on it. And sometimes my head just is so cloudy and foggy, and her talking, I have to ask her to chill because my head hurts, and it's just I'm overstimulated from not only being, you know, in a high capacity job and having many people that need to ask of you from all directions, but then coming and picking her up and then being on immediately. Mom, can I have this? I'm thirsty. I want this. Can I have a snack? Why didn't you do this? And it's just like I have not had time. I have not had time to wind down. I have not had time. So the truth is sometimes you just want to walk away because there is this mental overload that shoot, it overexceeds anything, any job that you could ever have as a mom. It is a constant responsibility, and you can't walk away from it. Um, and I would absolutely let me make this very, very clear. I will never, ever be giving my child up. But sometimes I just want to push her to the side and have somebody responsible enough that I know that I don't have to call and check in, that I can just disappear. And truth be told, I want to go by myself. I don't even want to go with my man, and I don't want to feel guilty for it. Love him to pieces, but wanting a break doesn't mean I don't love my family. Self-care is not selfish, and I really want to be able to take advantage of that. Um, mothers are expected to just recover. It doesn't matter if you're sick, it doesn't matter if you're tired, it doesn't matter if you're anxious, and if you do get a break when you come back, nothing has changed. So sometimes I just want peace. That was my word of the year a couple years ago. I think I want to go back to that. What makes it even harder is that I feel like sometimes mothers can be invisible while they're carrying all of this, and sometimes you gotta yell and you have to act crazy so people can hear you. So I'm going to share uh uh an example of that. Um, and I hope I don't embarrass anybody, but it was around Christmas time, and I'm probably gonna share this again, but it was around Christmas time this year when you know, as mothers, we make magic for Christmas season and we just go all out. We want to give the very best experience for our kid. Um, and so you know, I told myself, I'm not doing this and I'm not doing this, and I'm not shopping, and she's only getting, and blah, blah, blah. Well, we pour all of our love and all of our heart into making sure that they get what they've asked for, but also we we know what they need and all of the things. So I poured everything I had into making sure that Tavia's Christmas was magical this year. Um said I wasn't gonna decorate. We did the decorations, got her a tree for her bedroom, got her a tree for her little TV room, decorated the tree for the big living room. What was I thinking? Three trees, um, you know, did the gift shopping and hit all of the gifts, and then on Christmas Eve, pulled them out, realized just how much I did, and I was like, whoa, I didn't mean to do all of this. Um, so that was one thing. And then, you know, you have Christmas, you open up All the gifts you don't want to make it commercial. And I tried to have the talk with her. I explained to her the world is on fire right now. We're not going to be doing this. So, what two or three things do you really, really want? And then you just can't help yourself. So, as the default parent, you're planning the activities, you're planning the experiences, you're making sure there's coloring, you're making sure there's wrapping, you're making sure there's gifts, not only for your child, but for your partner, for your families, for everybody. And it becomes very exhausting and it goes extremely unnoticed. But also, you still have to also tend to all of the things that are going on in the house. And um, so on top of all the things we're doing within the house, school is asking for you to do 85,000 other things, like wear green today, or wear your striped Christmas socks, or we don't celebrate Christmas, but this is a holiday spirit. So think of your favorite holiday activity and make sure you bring a piece of that in. Or I'm making all of these things up, but you know what it's like. You're if you're listening, you you're a parent, you've made it this far, you know what I'm talking about. So it's just all of this added stuff on top of you are already working full time. So I've already talked about the the burden and the emotional load that you're carrying, and now we're adding on holidays. So Christmas came, we had an amazing time. After Christmas, I really wanted to make sure the house was in order because it had been falling apart and took the time to really like really dig in, and I'm just sitting, I finally sit down after hours of like really digging in, and I see my man sitting, I see my daughter sitting, and I'm just like I'm I'm mad, and then I see them playing with each other as if I don't exist, and it was just you know, you just I just spent all this energy on Christmas being this magical experience, and then you went back to forgetting me again, and sometimes you just don't feel appreciated for the things you do or for who you are, and until you're needed, sometimes you are not seen, and that is an unspoken truth that I'm sharing, and I'm being very vulnerable, and I might get in trouble about, but you know, if if you don't talk about it, it won't change. So when it changes, then we can think about the strategies that were used to change it, and the first thing is to speak about it. So I do want to highlight that being needed is not the same as being seen. Mothers become truly the backbone of everything while they sit and fall back because they are not being heard and they're not being seen. And you know, I just wonder sometimes if if my family notices the weight that I carry and if they can invite themselves to help pick up the load sometimes. So there are so many other truths that moms carry quietly. So over the seasons that I've had Nailed at Motherhood podcast and talking to other moms, I've heard many, many, many topics come up. So now I want to just share with you some other truths that I know that moms don't say out loud. And if you can agree with me, go ahead and comment below or share this episode with somebody else that you know might be going through some of these things because we do want them to know that they're not alone. And at Nailed It Motherhood Podcast, we are the community that you can speak honestly with. So, one of the truths, sometimes I miss who I was before kids. I'm not gonna comment on it, I'm just gonna keep it moving. Sometimes I feel touched out and overstimulated. Sometimes I feel pressure to be everything for everybody. Sometimes I resent how much falls on mothers emotionally, sometimes I just want my adult child to be an adult. Sometimes I don't recognize myself anymore. Sometimes I feel guilty no matter what I choose in my family. Sometimes I want support instead of advice. These are some of the topics that come up, and there are plenty, plenty more. One of them is sometimes I wish I had my mother here with me because other people's advice is never going to be my mom's. That's my truth. Do you resonate with any of these unspoken truths? Are you ready to speak about it? Mothers are truly carrying emotional weight while we're pretending that we're fine. But honestly, honesty is important because healing can't happen when we're pretending and we're not speaking about it. I just want you as listeners to know that moms truly deserve safe spaces. And I harped so much on being uninvited to this episode if you can't handle vulnerability. Because vulnerability should never be punished. And I hate watching social media comments, but it's really hard to pull away from sometimes because some people just are so haughty about how they allow other people to express their honesty. So we need to change that narrative. I think honest motherhood conversations create space for healing. Admitting motherhood is hard does not make you ungrateful. It is hard. And sometimes we are the only ones we got to listen to. That doesn't make us bad mothers. It makes a room for healing to happen. I promise you, mothers, we deserve spaces where we don't have to perform strength all the time. So again, this episode was for moms who needed permission to release. I carry stress in my shoulders, in my neck, and apparently it's causing migraines. So I need a space where I can release. So I am your host with the most, Tamara Eldridge. I hope you've enjoyed this episode with just moi. I do want to remind you that I just opened up a school where I will be having live conversations that interact with my listeners because I think that community value is critical. It's critical now, especially for the time that we are in today. So I do want you to check out the school links below. You can either be a free member and just participate in the post and the discussions, or you can get access to classes and things like that. But if you like this episode and you want to hear more personal parenting journeys like it, please don't forget to subscribe to all of my social media platforms at Nailed It Motherhood Podcasts on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Again, I'm trying the TikTok. I'm just not there yet. We're working on it. You can also subscribe and follow on your favorite podcast platform so that you never ever miss an episode. Also, don't forget we do have a new Nailed at Motherhood shop where you can get all things nailed at Motherhood, including journals, merch, and other supportive items that will help you during your personal parenting journey. As always, we welcome your questions, your comments, and ideas. And if any of these unspoken truths that I talked about today resonate with you, please tell me in the comments below. We definitely hope to keep this conversation going. If you want to see this conversation on school, let me know and we can set up a webinar. Until next time, keep on doing what it is you do. Swooches me to note it under her podcast.