Finding Yourself Again

Posted: Aug 21, 2026 13:43:39

The Strange Struggle of Having Hobbies After Becoming a Mom

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about hobbies. Not because I desperately need another thing to add to my already full plate, but because I realized I don’t really know what my hobbies are anymore. Before kids, I could have answered that question pretty easily. I knew what I liked. I knew what I wanted to do when I had free time. There were things that made me feel like me. Then I became a mom. And somewhere between the diapers, naps, snacks, laundry, bedtime routines, grocery shopping, and the constant little voices calling for me, I stopped asking myself what I actually liked. My free time became less about doing something I enjoyed and more about recovering from everything I had just spent the day doing. And honestly? I think that’s part of why finding hobbies as a mom can feel so strangely difficult. What do I actually like? It sounds like such an easy question. What do you like to do? I don’t know. Read? I love reading. But sometimes I don’t want to read because my brain has spent all day being needed by everyone else and I just want to stare at my phone. Bake? I love baking. But baking also means dishes, sticky counters, and someone inevitably asking for whatever I just made before I’ve even had a chance to taste it. Go for walks? Sure. I like walks. But now I’m packing snacks, finding shoes, negotiating with a toddler, pushing a stroller, and wondering if I’ve remembered everyone’s water bottle. Watch a show? Absolutely. But is that a hobby? Or am I just tired? And that last question is one I’ve caught myself asking way too often. Somehow, motherhood made me feel like everything I did needed to be productive to count. If I had an hour to myself, I should clean something. If the kids were occupied, I should catch up on laundry. If I finally got everyone to sleep, I should probably do something useful. And if I did nothing? Well… then I had wasted my free time. Except maybe I hadn’t. Maybe I was just exhausted. Motherhood changes more than your schedule. I think one of the hardest parts about becoming a mom isn’t just losing the amount of free time you used to have. It’s losing the uninterrupted space to figure yourself out. Before kids, you could stumble into an interest. You could decide one day that you wanted to try painting and spend an entire afternoon doing it. You could get really into photography. Or gardening. Or reading. Or sewing. Or hiking. Or whatever random little thing caught your attention. You could be bad at it. You could quit. You could try something else. Motherhood doesn’t always give you that kind of freedom. You might have twenty minutes. And suddenly twenty minutes doesn’t feel long enough to start something. So you scroll instead. You watch other people living their lives, doing their hobbies, making beautiful things, reading books, exercising, crafting, decorating, travelling… And somehow you end up feeling like you’re the only person who doesn’t know what she’s doing with herself. But maybe we’re putting too much pressure on ourselves to find a hobby when what we’re really trying to find is ourselves. Maybe I don’t need a hobby. Maybe I need curiosity. I’ve started wondering if the answer isn’t to suddenly discover some magical new passion. Maybe it’s just to become curious about myself again. What makes me lose track of time? What do I look forward to? What did I used to love before I started measuring my days in nap lengths and bedtime? What sounds fun even if I’m not particularly good at it? What would I try if nobody was going to see the result? And maybe, most importantly: What do I want to do when nobody needs anything from me? I don’t think I need to know the answers right away. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe this season of motherhood isn’t about reinventing myself. Maybe it’s about slowly getting reacquainted with myself. It’s okay if your hobbies look different now I also think there’s this weird expectation that a hobby needs to be impressive. You should have a creative hobby. You should work out. You should read. You should garden. You should make sourdough. You should have a side business. You should learn a language. You should have something you’re passionate about. But what if your hobby is sitting outside with a coffee while the kids play? What if it’s reading ten pages of a book before bed? What if you love baking muffins on a random Tuesday? What if you like taking pictures of your kids? What if you spend twenty minutes rearranging a room because it makes you happy? What if you watch a ridiculous show after everyone goes to sleep? What if your hobby changes every six months? I think we’re allowed to have interests that don’t become identities. We’re allowed to enjoy things without monetizing them. We’re allowed to be beginners. We’re allowed to get bored. We’re allowed to quit. We’re allowed to like something simply because it makes us happy. I’m still figuring it out I don’t have a beautiful ending where I’ve discovered exactly who I am outside of motherhood. Honestly, I’m still figuring that part out. I’m a mom. That’s a huge part of who I am, and I wouldn’t want to erase that. But I’m also a person underneath the motherhood. And sometimes I think I’ve forgotten that I’m allowed to be curious about her. Maybe finding hobbies isn’t really about finding something to fill my spare time. Maybe it’s about giving myself permission to have a little piece of my life that doesn’t revolve around being needed. A little corner that belongs just to me. And maybe I don’t have to know what that corner looks like yet. Maybe I can try things. Maybe I can change my mind. Maybe I can discover that I love something I never expected to love. Maybe I can rediscover something I used to love. Maybe I can simply sit with the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing. Because somewhere underneath the laundry and the dishes and the bedtime battles and the endless snacks, there’s still a person here. And I’m starting to think she deserves to get to know herself again

---