When "I Could Be Her" Is Not the Answer
There is something happening in the way we are talking about motherhood that I don't think we should ignore. Videos are appearing of mothers holding their babies and saying, through tears, that they understand how another mother could reach the point of harming her children. Some say they could have been her. Some describe themselves as one medication change, one sleepless night, one breaking point away.
I don't want to mock those women. I don't want to roll my eyes at them. And I certainly don't want a suffering mother to hear Christians respond to her fear with, Try harder. Pray more. Good mothers don't think things like that. If a mother is frightened by her own thoughts, profoundly depressed, disconnected from reality, experiencing hallucinations or delusions, or afraid she might hurt herself or her children, she needs help. Immediately. Taking that seriously is not weakness. It is not worldly psychology. It is one way we protect life.
But compassion does not require us to say something that is not true. "I could be her" cannot become the Christian conclusion.
There Is a Difference Between Understanding Suffering and Excusing Sin
Scripture gives us categories our culture increasingly struggles to hold together.
A person can be suffering terribly and still need accountability.
A person can need medical care and spiritual care.
A mother can be overwhelmed and still have a responsibility to protect her children.
Suffering can affect judgment, capacity, and responsibility in ways we may not be able to measure perfectly from the outside. Scripture gives God the final knowledge of the heart, not us. But suffering does not make evil good, and it never removes the need to protect vulnerable people. And Christians can take someone's mental suffering seriously without treating violence as the inevitable end of that suffering. Galatians 6 gives us a remarkably balanced picture. We are told to restore someone caught in sin gently, and then immediately told: "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2, NIV).
Notice what Scripture does not make us choose between.
Restoration and gentleness.
Responsibility and burden-bearing.
Truth and compassion.
We don't have to choose. In fact, biblical love requires both.
Scripture also doesn't give every struggling person the identical response. Paul writes, "warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone" (1 Thessalonians 5:14, NIV). It tells us to warn some, encourage others, help the weak, and be patient with everyone. Wisdom means learning the difference, not applying one script to every struggling mother we encounter.
If You Are Afraid of What You Might Do, Tell Someone
This is where I wish the conversation around struggling mothers would go.
Not: I could be her.
But: I am not okay, and I need help before something terrible happens.
Tell your husband.
Tell a trusted family member.
Call your doctor.
Call your pastor or a mature woman in your church.
If you believe your children may not be safe with you right now, do not remain alone with them. Get another safe adult involved immediately and seek emergency help.
There is no spiritual prize for suffering alone until you break. Jesus does not stand at a distance from exhausted people and demand that they prove themselves first. He says: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28, NIV). Coming to Christ does not mean refusing medicine, counseling, sleep, practical help, or emergency intervention when they are needed.
Sometimes faithfulness looks remarkably ordinary.
Hand someone the baby.
Tell the truth.
Go to the doctor.
Let someone bring dinner.
Sleep while another trustworthy adult takes the night shift.
Confess the thoughts that frighten you instead of hiding them.
Ask your church to actually function like the body of Christ.
Faithfulness is not pretending you are stronger than you are.
Your Children Need Protection, and Their Mother Needs Care
Those two statements are not enemies. This is where I think some of our conversations have gone wrong. We become so concerned about stigmatizing the suffering mother that we become hesitant to speak clearly about the vulnerable child. Or we become so horrified by what happened to a child that we lose all compassion for a woman whose mind may be profoundly unwell. Christians should be able to say both: Protect the child. And: Care for the mother.
If she is dangerous, protecting her children may mean separating her from them temporarily. That isn't abandonment. It may be the most loving thing everyone involved can do. And if she has committed a terrible act, compassion for her suffering does not require pretending the act wasn't evil. Mercy does not require us to rename evil before it can enter the room. The cross shows us both how seriously God takes sin and how far His mercy goes to save sinners.
Motherhood Was Never Meant to Rest on Your Strength
Maybe this is the part I most want the crying mother holding her baby on the other side of a screen to hear. Your home does not need a mother who can promise she will never become exhausted, depressed, frightened, angry, or overwhelmed. It needs a mother who knows where to go when she is. Build that into the foundation of your home before the crisis comes.
Know who you call.
Build relationships in your church deep enough that someone notices when you disappear.
Let people know the real version of your family, not merely the Sunday-morning one.
Learn to confess sin without defending it.
Learn to receive help without treating dependence as failure.
Build rhythms of Scripture and prayer that aren't performances but ordinary ways of returning your attention to Christ.
Teach your children that when Mom sins, Mom repents.
Teach them that when someone is suffering, Christians move toward them.
Teach them that asking for help and taking responsibility can exist in the same sentence.
Because the foundation of a faithful home was never Mom holding everything together. It is Christ.
Build Before the Breaking Point
I think we have spent too much time asking what explains the moment when everything falls apart and not enough time asking what faithfulness looks like in the thousand ordinary moments before it.
Who knows you well enough to recognize when something is wrong?
Who has permission to tell you the truth?
Does your husband know when you're drowning?
Does your church actually know your family?
When you notice anger growing, what do you do with it?
When you are overwhelmed, where do you reach first?
When you fail, do you hide, justify, blame, or repent and seek help?
Those aren't glamorous questions. They're foundation questions. And foundations are built before the storm.
Compassion Should Move Us Toward Faithfulness
So when I hear a mother say, I could be her, I don't want to answer with condemnation. I want to say: Then please tell someone. If that fear is real, don't turn it into content. Don't normalize it. Don't carry it alone. Bring it into the light.
If you are afraid of what you might do, please reach out right now. If you are in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7, or text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line. If your distress is connected to pregnancy or postpartum and you need support and resources rather than an immediate crisis line, Postpartum Support International's helpline at 1-800-944-4773 connects you with a trained volunteer. If you believe your children are not safe with you in this moment, get another adult in the room immediately and call 911.
Let someone help carry the burden. Protect your children. Receive whatever legitimate medical, psychological, pastoral, and practical care you need.
And come back, again and again, to Christ. Not because faithful Christian mothers never struggle. But because our suffering does not get to become our master, and our feelings do not become our authority.
A frightening thought is not the same thing as an intention, and an unwanted intrusive thought is not the same thing as a chosen desire. Many mothers who experience postpartum OCD or other perinatal disorders are horrified precisely because these thoughts feel foreign to them, not because they want to act on them. But if you are afraid you may act on what is happening in your mind, bring it into the light and get help immediately.
We are responsible for what God has entrusted to us, but we were never asked to carry that responsibility apart from Him or apart from His people. Maybe the better response to a culture full of mothers saying I could be her is not: No, you could never be. And it isn't: Yes, any of us are one bad day away. Maybe it is: You are capable of sin. You are also not helpless before it. So bring what is happening into the light, receive help, protect what God has entrusted to you, and keep returning to Christ.
Build the kind of home where weakness can be admitted before it becomes catastrophe. Build the kind of relationships where someone can say I am not okay and know that people will actually come. Build habits of repentance, truth, help, accountability, prayer, and dependence before you desperately need them. Not because those things guarantee what your children will become. Not because the right rhythms make tragedy impossible. But because this home has been entrusted to you, and today you can be faithful with what is in front of you.