Motherwhelmed

It’s December.  It’s Christmas.  It’s the busiest time of the year.  Christmas lists, time for shopping, baking, wrapping, parties, making sure you have a gift for everyone including family members, teachers, coaches, pets and neighbours all add up to A LOT of invisible and visible work for ~ let’s be honest ~ mom’s!

Let’s face it, burnout is relatable. I am two decades plus into my role as mother and I will admit it’s completely overwhelming STILL. The love I have for my children and family, and my career has inspired me to find a new way to love myself, so I don’t burnout and can continue to care for myself and those who are important to me. 

Nearly everyday I encounter a woman, just like me, who is in the trenches (yes, it feels like a battle at times.). It could be a woman juggling her career and toddlers who won’t put or keep their snowsuits on in the morning as she runs late for work; or it could be a mother who is struggling with her contemptuous teen; or it could be a mother who is grappling with caretaking for her older children and her parents while also trying to have enough energy to binge watch a show with her partner in the evening. Women are “kinkeepers” and they hold families together by nurturing their own family of origin, and their in-law family of origin. Mothering makes all of us “tired AF”! My heart aches and I feel each one of these struggles as my maternal sensors are screaming.

According to research, no wonder mothers feel this way. The number of hours our parents spent at their jobs were strict and rigid, but now we are working at all hours of the day as we carry phones and receive emails, text messages and appointment reminders 24/7. In addition, the mental load for our generation includes blurred boundaries between career and family adding to the sheer amount of things our brains are processing each and every minute. The average person has some 65, 000 thoughts per day, and mom’s are in the high average of that amount. Women actually spend twice as much time on parenting now as they did in 1965, when the vast majority of women did not work. What this means is that it’s the difference between go out and play and I’ll see you at dinner, and I’m going to sit with you and do Montessori learning with you after I work all day, buy groceries, meal plan, make supper and clean up the kitchen. It is little wonder mom’s feel overwhelmed. “Mother’s work ~ both paid and unpaid ~ is some of the most essential, important work on the planet, yet it’s also some of the most undervalued and invisibilized” (Berry, 2020)

In addition, mom’s face a perfection perception because of what we see “other” moms doing on social media.  Let’s face it, we all have a social media persona and it’s ALL the good things we do, make and are proud of. Social media is not a space for private and taboo real life negative situations that are happening inside all of our homes. This adds a great deal of pressure to be the “good mom”, and leaves little space for

“I can’t just be”.

How do I change this?  Trust me, I am still learning along with you.  Life is a learning journey so let’s learn together, and unlearn the notion of the “perfect mom”.

In the book titled, Motherwhelmed: Challenging Norms, Untangling Truths, and Restoring Our Worth To The World, author Beth Berry states ”if being a ‘good mother’ means doing as much as we can without having to ask for help, we are not only enduring isolation under the watchful eyes of our kids. We are also perpetuating the narrative that mothers aren’t worthy of support”. (p. 178)  We are also exhausting ourselves and limiting our access to joy. We are perpetuating the narrative that mothers are less worthy of nourishment and rest.

So how do we unlearn and journey into a modern-day motherhood that “status-quo motherhood”, with all of its dysfunction, perpetuates?

Here are a few suggestions that I am trying and I invite you to try as well:

• do you ever let your children just see you sit down and just be?  What are you teaching your children when they see you going all the time and doing all the time? I invite you to sit down and just BE ♡

• you are allowed all the goodness.  You are allowed to slow down.  You are allowed to say no. you are allowed to just BE♡

• rest and trust that you are doing enough.  You are enough ♡

• ask for help, you do not have to do ALL this alone ♡

• tell yourself “I am a good enough mom”.  Tell another woman, “you are a good enough mom” ♡

• speak to yourself with kindness, compassion and love ♡

• self-care can be simple. Nourish your body, calm your mind, and focus on small wins ♡

• remind yourself to honour your boundaries as invitations to care for yourself and those you love. Your “no” makes space for your “yes” to things that nourish your soul ♡

• Let’s work together to erase the notion of “perfect”. Children do not need to see us parenting perfectly.  Children need to see us screw up, own it, forgive ourselves, grow, and show them how it’s done. Children need to learn to treat themselves gently and we are their teachers ♡

• We can learn to cultivate healthier, kinder relationships with ourselves, and in doing so, model healing and health and empowerment to our children, and generations to come ♡

Take care of yourself now and forever ♡

Source:

Berry, B. (2020). Motherwhelmed: Challenging norms, untangling truths and restoring our worth to the world. Revolution from Home Publishing.