Tattooed Mom Has The Best Response To Being Told She Doesn't 'Look Like The Mom Type'

Who says moms have to look and act a certain way?

Whether it’s wearing mom jeans or getting a so-called mom cut, there are definitely stereotypes out there about how a mom is supposed to look and act. But as one UK blogger’s viral post points out, there’s really no such thing as a “mom type.”

Blogger Gylisa Jayne from Cornwall has a one-year-old daughter named Lily. Despite the fact that she’s crushing it as a mom, she found the world was still judging her parenting skills based on her appearance. “It was a series of comments, looks — even advertisements that made me feel I didn’t fit the mold.” she tells Scary Mommy. After one person flat out told her, “I didn’t think you were the type to be a mother,” Jayne took to Facebook to settle this bullshit one and for all.

“It’s one of those common phrases, we label ‘Mother’ and have a stereotype in our heads,” she writes. “A ‘Mother’ has to live up to a certain standard, and it isn’t just taking care of your own kid. Mothers are meant to sacrifice every aspect of themselves, to fulfill their role.”

She notes how so much of the mom tropes paint moms as martyrs who don’t do anything for themselves or take pride in their appearance. “Mothers aren’t allowed expensive bags, or shopping trips out, or to have a fresh manicure every few weeks,” she continues. “Mothers aren’t meant to have tattoos, or colored hair or piercings.”

Jayne rejects the idea that moms are supposed to forget about who they were before they became a parent. In fact, she argues that the life experiences you have beforehand only make you better at being a mom. “But how can we raise our children effectively if we haven’t experienced a bit of life beforehand?” she wonders. “Without navigating my own checkered past how could I possibly hope to guide a new soul through similar times?”

Jayne says she’s happy her words are inspiring so many other moms to say, “Me too!” But what she really wants is for her daughter to live by mom’s example. “I hope she will see firsthand that you don’t have to fit in to be ‘liked’ and that blending in isn’t the best thing.” she explains. “I hope that she sees my self-confidence and it furthers her own — if mothers don’t practice self-love then how can we hope to teach our children to love themselves?”

As moms we worry so much about raising out children to be kind, good people. That’s hard enough. We shouldn’t have to stress over adhering to some bullshit, fictional Mom Dress Code and Code of Conduct on top of it.

“Motherhood isn’t an exclusive club that you can only get into if you look or act the right way,” Jayne reminds us. “It’s full of women that all have lives and tales and colorful histories. Women of every type, from every background and every descent. Women that swear, women that don’t, women that are real, and women that don’t give a fuck about what you think.”