Why Does Being a Mom Feel This Overwhelming?

Since the kids came along, does it feel like you’re stressed out ALL THE TIME? Snapping over the socks on the floor, the shoes by the door, the permission slip that turns up at 7:40 in the morning? Then lying awake feeling awful about it, because you wanted all of this?

We carry a lot from the minute the first child comes into our lives. Along with it come our own expectations, everybody else’s expectations and the stress that follows us around all day because of both. And under all of it runs the list nobody else sees. It’s the sneakers that are getting tight, the dentist, the battery in the smoke detector that chirped in the middle of the night. A list on paper ends somewhere. The one in our head never does.

The Mom We Think We Have to Be

Before kids, we knew stress when we saw it. Then the family we wanted showed up and we forgot what it looks like. Now we won’t admit we’re worn out, not even to ourselves at two in the morning. We wanted this, didn’t we? That is the line we tell ourselves. So instead of saying “I’m exhausted”, we feel guilty for being exhausted. That’s mom guilt. It can eat a whole evening.

So what are we really stressed over? Not motherhood itself. What is wearing us down is the idea of what a mother is supposed to be and do. You know the mom I mean? She’s patient with everybody, her house is always picked up, dinner is from scratch most nights and she never once looks tired doing it. Have you ever met her? Me neither! Nobody has, because she got put together out of magazines, color-coded lunches and the best thirty seconds of somebody else’s day.

That’s where the mom guilt comes in. We hold ourselves up against her all day long, so of course we come up short. The problem was never you falling short. The problem is the standard, which no living mother has ever met. If your mornings run late and the permission slips go missing, that is not evidence that you don’t have your life together. It’s evidence that you have kids!

It gets worse if you’re great at your job, because you bring the job’s yardstick home with you. Motherhood doesn’t work that way. Kids aren’t a project. So being great at work can make home feel like failing. It all gets heavier when money is tight, your health is off or your own past is in the room. We do so much for our kids and the bar still goes up. Even asking whether the bar is fair can feel like asking whether we love our kids.

And it snowballs from there. We feel guilty, so we push harder, until we’re too worn out to be patient with anybody…and then we feel guilty about that too!

The kids notice, though. Not the standard, they’ve never heard of it. They see the mom who is anxious, irritable and easy to set off. That’s the NO FUN MOM, as I like to call her. We never see her coming. We forget that skipping things is allowed, even for a whole day. The house, the laundry, the yard, the dinner that’s more than sandwiches. There’s always tomorrow.

What Can Wait Until Tomorrow

More of it than you’d think. Let’s go through the big ones. Pick one. The rest keeps until tomorrow.

Friends and family always want something, and you’re allowed to say no to a good bit of it.

As for work, we need the money, yes. We also need a line somewhere, or home turns into one long stressfest. If your day has an end, let it end. The email can sit there until morning and the kids can feel the difference when it does.

A partner is supposed to be a partner, so ask for help at home. If you’re doing this alone, ask family or ask a friend. Keeping a house going is a team effort anyway, so the kids can take on the small stuff if you make it a little bit fun. One trick is the dusting job. Hide the candy you said no to at the checkout line, or a dollar or two, somewhere they’ll only find it if they actually dust!

We all have an activity that makes us lose it. Say it’s the morning clothes dawdle. So we take that one out of the day. The kids pick their clothes the night before, and they go in one spot in their room, socks to hair clips. The morning has one less fight in it. Whatever yours is, taking it out of the day makes for a calmer mom.

We tell ourselves there’s no promise of tomorrow, so we cram every hour full. All that cramming just makes more stress. At the end of a day like that we lash out at the kids and probably at the partner too. Nobody enjoys that day, including us. You matter too.

There Is Always Tomorrow

So what’s the rule? The work keeps until tomorrow whether you worry about it tonight or not. Tomorrow you might knock all of it out or you might not, and either way there’s a day after that.

A deadline, a bill, a sick kid, those belong to today. The laundry and the weeding don’t. The bathroom sink isn’t gonna get less dirty by tomorrow. It isn’t gonna get much dirtier either.

So be there with your kids instead. Pizza and soda on a school night counts. So does miniature golf over the laundry, or the park, or whatever is close. If you’re all smiling and laughing, free of the work stuff and the mom stress for an hour, you are doing life rather well.

And if nobody was laughing tonight, or you yelled? Tell them you’re sorry and give them a hug, tomorrow morning if they’re already asleep. Then there’s always tomorrow.

You Don’t Have to Be Supermom

The kids don’t need a perfect mom. They don’t need the perfect house, the organic dinner from scratch or the newest device. They need you present, a mom whose ears and head are both in the room. Kids don’t care one bit about dirty floors, sandwiches for dinner suit them fine and they don’t care what happened at work. What they want is the singing in the car, the cuddling on the couch and the playing on the floor.

One small thing helps. It takes no time at all, which matters when you have none. When we catch ourselves thinking about the chores or the work in the middle of family time, we say the rule to ourselves, there’s always tomorrow, and look back at the people in the room.

Letting go of the garbage thinking, the should-haves and the Supermom standard gets us back to having fun with the kids. Setting down a standard you’ve lived by for years feels strange for a while, though.

If the Stress Won’t Budge

Sometimes the guilt sticks around even on the good days, or the “I’m never enough” voice gets louder than the “I messed that one up” voice, or you don’t sleep soundly anymore and the headaches have moved in. When it looks like that, therapy can help. Therapy doesn’t reorganize your household. In session, we look at where all those shoulds came from and what keeps you from setting them down. Reaching out isn’t failing.

Solid Ground Counseling & Wellness is my practice. Women come to me in person in Cedar Park or online from anywhere in Texas, moms included. A first call costs nothing and takes 15 or 20 minutes, enough to hear what’s going on with you and see whether we’d be a good fit.

When you’re ready, request a time or write to me.

On solid ground,

Acelli