Kiddipedia
By Marleen Mour
Mothers are often praised for putting everyone else first, but constant self-sacrifice can quietly become self-abandonment. Women’s permanent weight-loss coach and speaker Marleen Mour explores how mothers can care deeply for their families without disappearing from their own lives.
We praise mothers for being selfless. She eats last. She remembers every appointment. She carries the emotional temperature of the household and somehow notices that the toothpaste is running out before anyone else does.
Then we call her a good mother.
But there is a difference between loving sacrifice and chronic self-abandonment. Sacrifice can be an honest, temporary choice made for someone we love. Self-abandonment is when a woman repeatedly ignores her body, needs, voice and limits because she believes that is what love requires.
I know that pattern because I lived it long before I became a mother.
When worth lives outside you
At 19, I left Egypt and started again in Australia with very little money. I went to university, climbed the corporate ladder, built a business and lost 49 kilograms. Later, I married, became a mother, lost the baby weight within six months and returned to work. From the outside, I looked strong and capable.
Inside, I had outsourced my worth to things outside of me: approval, achievement, appearance, being chosen and being needed. Motherhood gave that old belief a respectable new disguise. Instead of asking whether I was okay, I asked whether everyone else was okay. Because I could carry a lot, I assumed I should.
There was always one more box to tick and one more standard to meet. Eventually, much of my life fell apart, and I had to face an uncomfortable truth: there was no finish line at which I would finally become worthy. Achievement could prove competence and build confidence, but it could never prove my worth.
The good mother standard has a real cost
This is not simply an individual failure to manage time better. The Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey found that, among people who participated in unpaid work in 2020–21, women averaged 4 hours and 31 minutes a day, compared with 3 hours and 12 minutes for men. Female parents who participated in childcare averaged 3 hours and 34 minutes, compared with 2 hours and 19 minutes for male parents. Because the survey was conducted during the COVID-19 period, the ABS advises treating it as a point-in-time picture, not a timeless rule. Even so, it shows that the load many women describe is measurable, not imagined.
The problem is not caring deeply for our families. The problem is the belief that a mother’s goodness should be measured by how little of herself remains.
Chronic self-abandonment can look ordinary. You skip meals and then eat whatever is closest at night. You postpone medical appointments. You feel guilty when you rest, but resentful when nobody notices you need rest. Food becomes one of the few reliable places to receive comfort, reward or relief, and then you punish yourself for reaching for it.
That is not a character flaw. It is a signal that your needs have been pushed so far down the list that they now demand attention in the only ways still available.
Self compassion supports healthier choices
Self-love is sometimes dismissed as indulgence, but the research points in a more practical direction. A study of 100 mothers found that higher self-compassion was associated with better diet quality, more intuitive eating and less emotional eating, partly through stronger body esteem. The study was small, cross-sectional and demographically narrow, so it cannot prove that self-compassion caused those outcomes.
However, a broader systematic review and meta-analysis of 59 studies also found that higher self-compassion was associated with fewer eating and body-image concerns, while self-compassion interventions produced improvements compared with controls. The evidence does not mean kindness solves every eating or mental-health difficulty. It does challenge the idea that shame and self-criticism are necessary for change.
In my work with women, accountability matters. But accountability without compassion easily becomes punishment, and punishment may produce short bursts of compliance without creating a safe, sustainable relationship with food or the body.
Five ways to stop abandoning yourself
1. Name the need before judging it. Ask, ‘What do I need right now?’ Then ask, ‘What am I afraid will happen if I honour that need?’ Guilt does not always mean you are doing something wrong. Sometimes it means you are breaking an old rule.
2. Make basic care non negotiable. Regular meals, sleep, movement, medical care and a little uninterrupted time are not prizes you earn after everyone else is satisfied. Choose one or two realistic basics and protect them.
3. Share ownership, not just tasks. Having to notice, plan, delegate and remind is still carrying the mental load. Where possible, give another adult full ownership of a recurring responsibility, including remembering it.
4. Practise a clean boundary. Try, ‘I can’t do that today,’ or ‘I can help with this part, but not all of it.’ A boundary is not an attack. It is honest information about your capacity.
5. Respond to eating with curiosity. After an emotional-eating episode, skip the punishment. Ask what happened before it, what feeling was present and what support was missing. Curiosity gives you information; shame usually gives you another reason to seek relief.
What our children learn from us
Mothers shape children through what we say and through what we normalise. If a child sees that Mum’s needs are always optional, they may learn that love requires women to disappear. If they see her care for others while speaking honestly, receiving help and respecting her body, they learn a fuller version of love.
I want my son to know that women are whole people, not supporting characters in everybody else’s life. I want him to see care that includes the carer.
You do not need to stop being generous, ambitious or devoted. You do need to question any version of goodness that requires you to dishonour yourself. Your family does not need a mother who has erased herself. They need the real woman who is already there.
Self-love is not abandoning the people you love. It is refusing to abandon yourself while loving them.
Author bio
Marleen Mour is a women’s permanent weight loss coach, TEDx speaker and founder of The Permanent Weight Loss Movement. After losing 49 kilograms and rebuilding her life in Australia, she now helps women move beyond shame, emotional eating and repeated dieting by combining personalised health education with self-love and emotional regulation. Marleen is the founder of Fitt Heroes and is based in Sydney, where she is raising her son.
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics. How Australians Use Their Time 2020–21.
