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Stressed Moms have Unique Challenges

The special role mothers have as caregivers both nurtures us and creates stressed moms.

Mothers are here to care for others.

We are hard wired to serve others. This trait makes our stress unique. Unlike other stressed people, when we need to reduce stress, we must not just disengage from our duties and responsibilities, but we must disengage from our natural inclination to care for those we love over the needs of ourselves.

Another way to view it: Caring for ourselves is one way to care for our loved ones.

Stressed mom pushing a grocery cartStressed Moms.

Stressed Moms are everywhere.

At the grocery store, a woman in business clothes pushes the cart with her 5 year old, trying to sound interested in the story about the cereal. The tensed lips, and the overly strong “Mommy really needs your cooperation now.” are the give-aways. She has 35 things to do before she gets home, and she is quickly feeling like she’s failing at all 35.

Our modern life has created this stressed mom, and while getting out of the cycle of stress is difficult for everyone, it is particularly difficult for a mother. The last thing she needs is to think that she must take a drawing class to relax. When would it be? Before or after the grocery store?

The Unique Problem of Stressed Moms:

  • We serve. We give. We help.
As mothers, our lives are designed with the needs of others first. And now that many mothers work outside the home, we give at the office and come home to give at home. We never get down time.
Mothers are made for this job, and can flourish in it. But modern life has pushed the demands to the maximum, while reducing the support to a stressed mom to a minimum. The system is bound to crash.
  • Because so many people rely on us, when a stressed mom needs to take time for herself, she feels like others will not get what they need in order for her to get what sheneeds.
How do you fit in a yoga class when the kids need to get to soccer?
This is a real and valid concern of stressed mothers, and adds to the level of stress.
Compound this with the statistic that around 25% of mothers are single, then the question about how to find time for oneself becomes even more vexing.
    • A mother’s brain is a never ending “things to do” list. Another way to say this is that a mother is never done with her chores. Unlike an executive who can complete a project, a stressed mom always has more to do. There is no project completion party.
    • As the snowball of stress grows, many mothers feel more stress delegating and instructing her family to help, than to do it. Lacking a system of help at home, many stressed moms just grow more stressed.
  • Like all mothers before us, moms are the heart of the family. Now, many mothers must be the brains at work as well.
When the mother’s world was closer to home, all of a mother’s tasks would have a theme of directly building the home for her family–growing food, cooking, mending clothes, teaching, raising the children, caring for the sick. She had one job description which predominantly involved more heart centered, right brain tasks.
Now mothers must often work outside the home. She must shift every morning and every evening from right brain to left, from heart to head. When her kids need to talk about their hard day, she must ignore her work deadline. And when she’s at work, she must focus on her job, and not on sick kids at home.
A work-outside-the-home mother’s life requires two opposing skills, and this is stressful. We can never do one skill completely.
  • A modern mother is disconnected from the woman’s community. Even stay-at-home-mothers do not have the companionship and support of other moms. My 80 year old friend tells me about how she would go to a fiend’s house and work together during the day to complete their tasks. For many women today, their closest women’s community is watching Oprah.
Mothers need each other to replenish themselves. When stressed moms get together, after a chat, some tea and cake, and some good girl-friend talk, they are often revived and ready to go home and work again. But few women get this support.

To find out more about Stressed Moms, please view the resources below.

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