This morning my high schooler had to be at school an hour early to serve a detention.
(He had a bit of a miscommunication with a teacher and went to the wrong room at the wrong time and was thought to be wandering the halls. ADHD and Auditory Processing… That’s another post.)
Anyway… my husband got the call from the vice principal yesterday and was given the choice of a morning detention or an afternoon detention for our son. My husband chose the morning so our son wouldn’t miss his football workout in the afternoon. I backed my husband up on this decision. Any guesses on how the teenager felt about it?
He hated it. “Why did you choose the morning? You know I’m not a morning person!” On and on and on and on. So this morning came and he drug his feet…. like slooooowwwwwwwly got in the shower, put his clothes on like a turtle……………….. Eventually it was 7:40 and he meandered down the stairs. Detention started at 7:45 and we live exactly 5 minutes and 30 seconds from the school.
I rushed him to get in the car. I frantically said, “Grab your shoes and your backpack and get in the car.” (My husband took preschooler duty because sometimes my husband and my teenage son just don’t mix well. Ha!)
On the way to school I said to my son, “I know why you were dragging your feet. You were being a wise guy and trying to prove a point. You wanted to show mom and dad that we made a dumb choice of choosing morning detention. But you know what, we made a smart choice.”
“I wasn’t doing that,” he said.
(Yeah right.)
“I’m not a morning person. It’s not my fault we’re running late,” he said. “You and dad know I don’t do mornings.”
(You can only imagine the fire running through my veins at this point. Most days I’m not sure I will survive raising this teenager. Love him so much but honestly….)
I said in response, “Too bad, kid. That’s life. I hate mornings too but your dad and I have to get up, get two kids out the door, take a dog out, and get our rear ends to work. You think we like doing that? But responsibility… get used to it.”
A Rushed Morning = A Rushed Day
That scenario just set the rest of the morning up to be insane. Everything was rushed because that situation was rushed. By the time I sat down at my desk I was exhausted. And I had 1,000 things running through my mind. (Grocery lists, work assignments, after school shuttle to practice and therapy details, packing lists for an upcoming trip, etc.) Then I thought about the stress I was feeling and why it was so high. So then I did something… I Googled “working moms” and pulled up the news tab. Here are some of the search results:
Why US Working Moms Are So Stressed – And What To Do About It
(Harvard Business Review, March 26, 2019)
The ‘motherhood penalty’ costs working moms $16000 a year
(Motherly Inc., March 25, 2019)
Will the ‘mental load’ for working moms ever get better?
(NBCnews.com, March 26, 2019)
Working Late At Night Might Increase Risk Of Miscarriage, Study Suggests
(Romper.com, March 27, 2019)
What It Means To Be A Modern-Day Working Mom
(WNPR.org, March 25, 2019)
These are just a few of the search results from THIS week. There’s also a lot of chatter on Netflix’s new show Working Moms.
So I took some time to read a few of the articles and let me tell you, it was therapy. I’m not the only one who feels constantly guilty or inadequate. Guilty about the work/life balance… too much time with the kids/not enough time with my clients… too much time with work/not enough with my kids. It is a constant mental battle.
When you bear the mental load, you worry about the shopping list, the laundry pile, the doctor appointments for the whole family and so on. It’s not about executing tasks, it’s about planning them. This burden, of course, usually falls on women.
Emma Clit, “Will the ‘mental load’ for working moms ever get better?”, NBCnews.com
Notice Emma’s quote above. She talks about how the stress doesn’t come from the executing of tasks… it’s the planning! That’s it! That’s what has me curled up in the fetal position most days and I have strong planning skills. It can seem impossible to finish work tasks and stay on top of the household planning.
(I’m not even kidding you just as I was typing that last sentence my husband came down and said, “Just found out I have to go out of town the week of….. will that work?” I look at the calendar. Deep breath. “I guess I’ll figure out.” I have my annual ultrasound on my thyroid one morning that week. Another meeting another day that conflicts with child pickup. There’s more planning of the kid shuffle. Not mad at him. It’s not his fault he has a job that requires travel. The irony of the timing of his announcement was just too much.)
The US Department of Labor published some stats about working women in America in March 2017. The numbers make me stand up and cheer but at the same time say, “how are we doing it all?”
- 74.6 million women in the civilian work force
- Women own close to 10 million businesses that accounted for $1.4 trillion in receipts in 2016 (Love this. I’m proud to be one of those 10 million.)
- 70% of mothers with children under 18 are in the work force with 75% of those women working full time.
I have an incredible husband who cooks about 70% of the time, who will jump in and help with the kids whenever needed, and does the majority of the financial planning (taxes, bill pay, etc.). The Pew Research Center reported a stat in May 2018 that 1 in 4 mothers in the US are single mothers. My hat is off to you, single mamas. You all are amazing mothers and you are heroes to me. I can’t imagine not having a two-parent household for the reason of responsibility sharing. So single mamas, I love you. Absolutely adore you. I know you are way more exhausted than I am.
Stress and the American Mother
Caitlyn Collins is a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis. She has interviewed more than 100 working mothers in four different countries. And, no surprise here, she has found that American mothers are more stressed. We don’t expect support from employers, the government, or our partners.
The Harvard Business Review interviewed Caitlyn for the HBR Ideacast on March 26.
And women often in the U.S. would start crying during the interviews and I didn’t expect this ahead of time. And the question that moms here tended to tear up unexpectedly over was when I asked them part way through our interviews, help me understand what it means to you, to be a good mother to your children.
Caitlyn Collins, HBR Ideacast, March 26, 2019
And this often elicited eyes welling up with tears and women breaking down with us needing to stop and pause because these American moms so often felt like they were failing their children. That there was a really wide gap between their hopes for what it meant for them to be a good mom and what they were actually able to enact on a day to day basis.
As I was listening to the Ideacast, I started to tear up when Caitlyn was talking about the other mothers tearing up. I started tearing up because my heart’s desire is to be a fantastic pearl-wearing, Pinterest-doing, happy and kind mama bear and I know that I’m falling short.
Between the work schedule, therapy schedule, routine schedule, planning time, etc., there’s not time left to fit that bill. And the guilt of that can be crushing.
The June Cleaver Ideal
Perhaps American mothers feel so much guilt because the June Cleaver image is the image so many of us grew up thinking of as the ideal mother.
June Cleaver’s life was her home and her family. She was prim, proper, on top of cooking, organized, etc. I’m just not sure how many of us who are modern mothers even have the time to look this good.
Even the number of us who have college degrees has quadrupled since 1970 according to the US Department of Labor Force. It has jumped from 11% of women in the workforce to 40%. Can you believe that?
So how is it that we can live up to this June Cleaver cultural expectation? We can’t. We can’t work in successful careers and live up to that standard. Hear me when I say, it is impossible and that is totally ok!
Have I shown you this picture of me before? This is me trying to get my then 2-year-old son down for a nap a few years ago. There’s nothing prim and proper about this, is there? But it’s real. 100% authentic.
Right after I took this selfie, I smoothed my hair a bit and booked it to my home office to meet some sort of client deadline before the 2-year-old woke up from his nap and started terrorizing me again. That’s real life, my friends.
Mamas, break the cultural expectations today. And for the love of Peter Brady, put an end to mom guilt. You have NOTHING to feel guilty about if you are loving your family as well as you can. Be you, keep your head up, meet your deadlines, and love your family. Who cares if you haven’t showered in a few days? Or if your pearls are now a string of teething beads? Or if the last time you put on a skirt of any kind on was in 2009 when President Barack Obama was inaugurated? Not this girl—I think you all are amazing. Plus I’m too busy meeting deadlines and loving my family.
Happy Hump Day, ya’ll!
Mama Frazzled 
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