The Weight of Stable Motherhood
There are 24 hours in a day, and, until this week, two of them belonged exclusively to me. Not to my daughter. Not to my husband. Not to my calendar or chores.
There were two times in the entire day I could be free of anyone’s expectations or needs except my own: her bedtime, and my morning time.
In the sacred space between my alarm and her biological clock, I had time to center my priorities and ease into the demands of the week.
And then, my daughter ruined half my life by waking up one hour earlier.
When she wakes early, the tenuous peace of the morning is shattered. It’s like the blanket of mist on an October field, beautiful in the moment, and gone by sun-up. I go from strategy field to war zone in a heartbeat. There are constant interruptions to my routine, running me late and racking up the stress levels. One half of the time that kept me sane is suddenly vanished, and my nervous system goes into fight-or-flight mode. My morning margin is nonexistent, and I have lost the war before I can enter the battle.
Here’s the problem: Research shows when we are living in high-stress moments, our kids don’t just observe us— they experience us. Their physiological systems interact with ours, in measurable ways. They become what we take on. So, what do we do when regulation isn’t readily available? How do we become regulated adults when we’re already running on so little margin?
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I don’t think the answer is simple. There is not a “quick fix” to undo the years of modeling you received and societal conditioning that brought you to the life of working mom stress. As high-capacity moms, we are rarely afforded the Goldilocks scenario of making everyone happy. Peace requires prioritization.
When we cannot change the stress climate
Working mom stress is born out of fervent motherhood, personal ambition, and a craving for excellence. We want to climb the corporate ladder and have intentional time with our families. We want our passions and for none of them to suffer. But what happens when we can’t change the stress climate? When work demands reach an all-time high at the same time our baby hits a sleep regression? Sometimes, the climate can’t change. It is what it is. It’s important to remember, though, high-stress climates should be a season, not a lifestyle.
As people of limited capacity, we cannot pretend the stress doesn’t exist. Our kids not only see through it, but they settle into our energy. We also can’t pretend to carry every priority 100 percent of the time.
While we’re trying to fake it ‘til we make it, we’re really telling our kids it’s not okay to struggle, and less than perfect equals failure.
We also can’t resign ourselves to the permanence of a high-stress existence. We will eventually burn out, and our families will be the collateral damage of our self-deception. Say it with me: I cannot carry it all.
What we need in these seasons:
Intentional margin: Don’t have an hour? Try microdosing brain breaks. Doodle or walk for 10 minutes of your work day. Wake up sacrificially early just one day of the week. Carve out pockets that belong to you, wherever you can make them. (Notice I said make them. As a high-capacity mom, you’re never going to find them. You’re the reason they exist.)
Connection: I grieved my lost sleep with another mom, and something amazing happened. We swapped horror stories. No encouragements, no solutions. Just commiseration. Sometimes, the validation that you aren’t struggling alone is more healing than you think. Working mom stress is a lonely race; be sure to fill it with sign-holders along the way.
Faith: Let me ask you a question. When God inspired David to write “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you,” (Ps. 55:22), did you think He didn’t know about your midnight wakings? That He isn’t concerned with your looming presentation deadline? He has numbered the hairs on your head, sister. He’s not asking you to carry it all— He’s asking to carry you through it all.
When you can control the factors of stress
Sometimes the challenge we face isn’t circumstances beyond our control. Sometimes they are the messes of our own making.
“He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” -John 15:2
Sometimes we must be willing to cut off branches that don’t bear fruit. Sometimes we must remove the cause of our constant need for regulation. We must ask ourselves: “Does this produce goodness? Patience? Kindness? Joy?” If not, the answer is, let it go. But what do we do when the stressors of our lives are all good, beneficial endeavors and they just get too heavy? We prune them. We trim them back, so the branches don’t become a bramble and can breathe to continue producing fruit.
What we need in these seasons:
Pruned priorities: Not everything you have needs to have you 100 percent of the time. I don’t know who needs to hear it, but pruning time with your kids is not a severed branch. It is healthy to entrust them to supportive help (school teachers, family, trusted baby sitters) and take advantage of PTO or date nights. A recharged mom is a regulated mom. The same can be said of our workplaces and other involvements— pruning produces peace.
Abandoned pursuit of perfection: If your goal in life is to have many things and do them well, you must abandon the idea that you can do them all perfectly. A commitment to stillness is how you survive the quicksand, not striving.
Kids don’t need perfect parents who are never stressed. They learn endurance from us. They need to see the reality that life is full of challenges, and they can learn to overcome them with the grit we hand down. But they also can’t aspire to a peace that is not modeled for them. Our children will learn to pursue the same level of peace we protected for them. It is a small comfort to me, in a world of oversimplification, to know that I can allow my daughter to see me struggle. My hope is that she learns to face down adversity, along the way. May the path of my trials today make way the path for her confident approach tomorrow.
If you’re a parent struggling with working mom stress or maintaining self-regulation, can I encourage you to hang out here by subscribing to my newsletter (below), following me on Substack or social media? I don’t have all the answers, but I’m on a mission to find community of likeminded moms who are hungry to be more. I’d love to be a sign-holder in your own race.
