Why “Are You Okay?” Might Be the Wrong Question in Motherhood
Are you okay?
It’s one of the most common questions we ask. We ask it when our child falls down, when a friend starts crying and when our partner seems stressed.
And in motherhood- especially new motherhood- people ask us this question all the time.
“Are you okay?”
It sounds caring, and often it is. But I’ve started to wonder if we’ve quietly changed the meaning of the word okay because somewhere along the way, okay became synonymous with feeling good, happy, calm, comfortable, and certain.
It’s what we assume when someone is not crying. Not struggling.
But what is that’s not what okay actually means.
When Mothers Say, “I’m Fine”
When someone asks a mother if she’s okay, the answer is often automatic: “I’m fine.”
This is usually because fine feels easier than explaining the complicated mix of exhaustion, grief, fear, love, resentment, gratitude, and uncertainty that motherhood can bring. Motherhood is one of the few experiences where you can feel completely overwhelmed and deeply grateful at the exact same time.
You can love your child with your whole heart and still miss your old life. You can be exhausted and fulfilled. You can be both confident and uncertain. Joyful and grieving. Those feelings don’t cancel each other out, they simply make you human.
We’ve Confused Discomfort with Danger
Our nervous systems have one primary job: To keep us alive. That’s it.
Your nervous system isn’t designed to make you comfortable every moment of the day. It’s designed to notice potential danger and help you survive it. The problem is that many of us begin to treat emotional discomfort as if it’s a threat.
We assume that if we’re anxious, something must be wrong. We think If our child is crying, we must fix it. And somewhere deep in there we believe if we’re uncomfortable, we aren’t okay.
But discomfort and danger are not the same thing. One of the most important skills we can build in motherhood is learning to tell the difference.
What “Okay” Really Means
Maybe okay doesn’t mean you feel good. Maybe okay simply means…
I’m breathing. My body is doing what bodies do. This feeling is uncomfortable, but it isn’t dangerous. I don’t have to make it disappear before I can move through it.
I can feel anxious…and still be okay. I can feel sad…and still be okay. I can feel overwhelmed… and still be okay.
The Same Is True for Our Children
Imagine your toddler falls down and bursts into tears. We often ask, “Are you okay?” But what if the answer is, “No. That really hurt.” Or, “I’m scared.” Or, “I’m embarrassed.”
What if our job isn’t to convince them not to feel those things or that they’re okay because the feeling isn’t that big of a deal. What if our job is to help them discover something even more powerful?
“This hurts” and… “You’re okay. I’m right here. We’ll get through it together.”
Notice what changes. We’re not dismissing the feeling, we’re helping them learn that big feelings don’t automatically mean something is wrong.
This Is Relational Intelligence
Strategic intelligence wants to eliminate discomfort and ‘make it all better’.
Relational intelligence knows that connection can exist right in the middle of it.
It doesn’t ask, “How do I make this feeling stop?” It asks, “How do I stay present while this feeling moves through me?”
That question changes everything.
One of the Greatest Gifts
One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is helping them learn that they can feel deeply uncomfortable and still be okay. To tach them that sadness doesn’t mean they’re broken, that fear doesn’t mean they’re unsafe, and that disappointment doesn’t mean they’re alone. And maybe that’s one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves, too.
Because motherhood isn’t about eliminating every uncomfortable feeling. It’s about learning, over and over again, not to confuse discomfort with danger.
When we do, we stop chasing “okay” as a feeling. Instead, we begin trusting it as something much deeper.
A quiet confidence that says:
This is hard. I’m uncomfortable. And I’m still okay.
