Meghan Montelibano-Gorman, 32, didn't know what to do after she had her first baby in 2021. She'd always been a hard worker and never saw herself as a stay-at-home mom. But she didn't want to miss out on her son's early milestones, either.
She said she felt like she had to choose between two camps of womanhood regularly blasted in movies, politics and social media: The "girl boss" or the "trad wife."
Four years and another baby later, Montelibano-Gorman said she realizes how "totally naive and oblivious" she was to the realities and nuances of motherhood. She wants to forge her own path − one that allows her to see all of her babies' firsts, work part time and create an online parent community that goes against the typical "momfluencer" trends.
"I’ve tried to really consciously, kind of, shift the paradigm," she said. "I can’t have it all, I know that. But I can have little bits here and there.”
From working moms breaking down in their cars after dropping their kids at child care, to stay-at-home moms putting on eyeliner and lipstick to bake bread from scratch, TikTok's picture of motherhood looks overwhelmingly binary. But while working mom and trad wife stereotypes reign online and in popular culture, many moms fall somewhere in between those two tropes. Still, the damage those images create can be long-lasting, experts say.
