Sonal Katyal Is Making Motherhood Feel Less Perfect — And More Real
Motherhood has long been portrayed as a beautiful, instinctive journey where mothers somehow know what to do, when to do it and how to get everything right. Social media only amplified that picture of perfectly prepared meals, well-behaved children, organised homes and mothers who appear to have parenting figured out.
But real motherhood rarely looks like that.
It looks like negotiating with a child over one more bite of food. It looks like answering the same question ten times. It looks like exhaustion, laughter, guilt, learning, unlearning and occasionally wondering, “Am I doing this right?”
It is this side of motherhood that Sonal Katyal brings to life through her Instagram platform, Rollercoaster of Motherhood. With a community of more than 300,000 followers, Sonal has built a space around raw and real parenting, mom lifestyle, healthy recipes and everyday experiences that parents can instantly recognise.
The name of her page itself captures the essence of her content motherhood is a rollercoaster, and there is no single emotion attached to it.
One moment can be joyful; the next can be chaotic.
A reel about a child refusing food, for instance, may seem like a funny everyday parenting moment. But for a mother struggling with a picky eater, that same situation can carry genuine anxiety. Is the child eating enough? Should the parent insist? Should another meal be prepared? Could this become a long-term habit?
This is where Sonal’s content becomes more than relatable entertainment. Her focus on children’s nutrition, healthy recipes, picky eating and practical food ideas gives parents something they can actually take away from a reel. Her content around protein-rich breakfasts, for example, turns familiar foods such as idli, sattu paratha, besan chilla and paneer-based dishes into accessible ideas for everyday family meals.
The impact lies in the simplicity.
Instead of making healthy parenting feel like another task on an already overwhelming checklist, the content shows parents that small changes can matter.
But food is only one part of the conversation.
A defining feature of Rollercoaster of Motherhood is its ability to capture the emotional contradictions of parenting. A mother can love her child deeply and still need a break. She can be grateful and exhausted at the same time. She can enjoy being a parent while also missing aspects of her life before motherhood.
These are not contradictions that need to be solved. They are simply part of being human.
Sonal’s storytelling works because she does not approach her audience from a pedestal. Her content feels like one mother talking to another. Research examining her Instagram presence has similarly identified the page as a space where motherhood experiences and knowledge are shared with other mothers, encouraging more informed parenting decisions.
That distinction is important in today’s creator ecosystem.
Parents don’t always need another person telling them what they are doing wrong. Sometimes they need someone to tell them, “This happens to me too.”
A reel showing the chaos of getting children ready can make a mother laugh because she has lived through the exact same morning. A post about food battles can make her feel less alone. A practical recipe can solve the “What do I make today?” dilemma. And a candid reflection about motherhood can give words to an emotion she had been unable to articulate.
That is the larger impact of Sonal Katyal’s work.
Rollercoaster of Motherhood is not trying to make motherhood look perfect. It is making imperfect motherhood visible.
In doing so, Sonal is helping shift the digital parenting conversation from comparison to connection — from “Am I doing enough?” to “I am learning as I go.”
And perhaps that is exactly what mothers need to hear today.
Because motherhood was never supposed to be a perfectly choreographed journey.
It was always meant to be a rollercoaster.
And sometimes, knowing that someone else is riding it with you makes all the difference.
