In a recent interview, Leslie Forde, founder of the organization Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs, described what it felt like to go back to work full-time in a demanding professional role after having her second child. Due to circumstances outside of her control, her job responsibilities increased, and she needed “to bring [her] most strategic, clear-thinking self to work.” Yet Forde was “completely depleted,” catching sleep in “90-minute increments with a newborn and toddler.” The situation was unsustainable. Forde reflects:
There were warning signs I was ignoring. Days I didn’t remember driving to work. Times I’d race through the parking garage, run up to the mother’s room, and realize I’d left the breast pump at home. I started hallucinating from sleep deprivation, and it was apparent to others—for the first time in my life people asked if I was okay.
It sounds like Forde experienced what psychiatrists call “depleted mother syndrome,” a term used to describe “the challenges faced by mothers, particularly those who are working [outside the home].” Forde eventually had to make a change. She took on a less challenging role, even though it meant a 40 percent pay cut, and over the next two years, she gradually was able “to recover and regain clarity after that burnout.” Countless new mothers have had similar experiences. It is challenging to combine paid work and mothering, especially in the early days. I am grateful for the work of people like Forde, who seek to provide these women with support and guidance.
But there is another sub-group of women facing “depleted mother syndrome”: homemaking moms with young children, especially mothers of large families. Even if society often fails to describe their activities as work, evidence shows that mothers who are at home with their children are at greater risk of “maternal burnout” than those who work outside the home. In particular, mothers with multiple young kids at home seem to be at greater risk of burnout than peers with fewer or older children. Yet surrounding communities—including religious communities—are not always sympathetic to the struggles of homemaking moms. Too often, mothers are told that they should just “pray and work harder.” This mirrors the advice that is often given to pastors and other faith leaders—advice that has been demonstrated to exacerbate burnout.
In other highly demanding professions, wise business leaders take the threat of burnout seriously. It’s time to do the same for homemaking moms.
Understanding Maternal Burnout
What is burnout? Burnout is characterized “significant fatigue and exhaustion, a loss of efficacy in the workplace, and a higher level of indifference towards one’s work.” Although it sometimes goes hand-in-hand with depression, burnout is not the same as depression (or other, related, mental health issues). Burnout is also not a medical condition. Rather, it is a psychological state caused by work stressors. Essentially, burnout is the result of a long-term mismatch between work demands and the resources available to the worker.
Burnout is not only caused by paid work. “Caregiver burnout” is a known risk for those in challenging caregiving situations. An elderly woman engaged in long-term caregiving for a husband with advanced Alzheimer’s is at serious risk of burnout as are parents with medically complex children. I am currently interviewing a number of parents who heroically and lovingly care for these special children. Their day-to-day life is sometimes so intense that they find it almost impossible to plan for the future.
Even in the absence of medical complications, taking care of little kids is an intense job. Mothers frequently experience severe sleep deprivation and must respond to relentless demands: Snacks! Potty! Diapers! Tantrums! Sibling fights! Cooking! Laundry! The job is high physical. Angry toddlers are remarkably strong, and the human infant—like her mammalian ancestors—likes to be carried a lot. The mental challenges are significant, too. Occupational requirements include constant triaging of multiple demands, emotional intelligence in dealing with developing personalities, and plenty of self-regulation.
Sometimes, the demands put upon a mother simply exceed the resources—both internal and external—that she can draw on to respond to those demands. Does a mother with several young kids at home constantly feels exhausted? Is she feeling indifferent to the work of managing the home or caring for her kids? It may be time to ask whether the problem is burnout (of course mental or physical illness should also be considered).
Not Merely a Spiritual Problem
Maternal burnout is real, and it demands a recalibration of maternal resources and demands. Unfortunately, all too often, it is treated as if it were a spiritual problem—a defect of character or lack of faith on the mother’s part.
A recent viral post by Lexy Sauvé, a pastor’s wife, and the author of Wisdom on Her Tongue: Tips for Getting Back Your Weekends & Holidays & Learning to Communicate Effectively in Marriage, exemplifies this mindset. Sauvé addresses the mother of “a gaggle of children, none taller than your belly button,” who is “quite literally drowning in dirty dishes and laundry,” without a “helping hand in sight or a day off for months on the calendar.” What these women need to do, according to Sauvé, it “grow up and work harder.” In the end, she says, “Either God’s grace is sufficient for the good works he’s prepared for you … or it isn’t.”
This mindset—“grow up and work harder” combined with a “God will provide” mentality—is remarkably similar to that often applied to another group of people tasked with caring for others: pastors. In a recent essay at Plough Magazine, Fr. Joshua Whitfield, a Catholic priest, described telling his first church: “I just worry that at this pace I’ll be dead at sixty. I really could use a little help.” His community’s response? “Well, we’ll get a good thirty years out of you, anyway.”
Thankfully, this is no longer the norm. Most mainstream denominations now take pastoral burnout very seriously, and there are multiple initiatives to address and prevent it. The Duke Divinity School, for example, has created the “Clergy Health Initiative” which is “dedicated to sharing research, resources, and stories designed to prevent burnout and seed flourishing in ministry.” While acknowledging that prayer and hard work are deeply important, the initiative seeks to ensure that “pastors have the permission and tools to foster their physical, mental, and spiritual health.” This is also true in many Jewish communities, where there is a push to “end the concept of the 24/7 rabbi.”
What might it look like for a mom of many kids with deep spiritual beliefs to take a page out of these pastors’ playbook, and seek to foster her own “physical, mental, and spiritual health”?
Learning from Pastoral Burnout
The first step might be awareness of burnout symptoms—and ability to distinguish an unsustainable mismatch between demands and resources from a mood disorder or other mental health condition. In some cases, the current emphasis on mental health may be doing mothers a disservice. Mental health is very important, of course. But the floundering mom drowning beneath household tasks doesn’t necessarily have depression or anxiety. It’s possible that the demands upon her have simply exceeded her capacities, and the family needs to adjust accordingly.
A mom who is experiencing symptoms of burnout might wish to consider what her “work stressors” are. While our society is often loath to think of the mom at home as working, she most certainly is, and should take her “work stress” seriously. This includes resisting the feeling that with the right attitude and prayer life, she can handle everything. A scholarly article on burnout among Catholic workers recommended pushing back on the “five loaves and two fish” mentality. Trust in God’s providence is admirable. “Chronically doing more with less,” however, “is a sure way to risk and foster worker burnout,” whether in the church or the home.
To avoid this outcome, the family must engage in thoughtful and serious planning to lighten the load. Perhaps spending limited funds on children’s extracurricular activities and family vacations needs to take a backseat to hiring help around the house. Maybe families considering homeschooling might decide to put their children in a brick-and-mortar school until mom’s workload is more manageable. If Dad has a job with lots of travel demands, maybe it’s time to start considering a career shift. Obviously both problems and potential solutions will vary by family. Still, identifying the primary sources of stress and making plans to resolve them will pay off in the long run.
Wise pastors engage in long-term planning, hires good employees, and stewards their resources so that they can serve their community for decades. But even moms with some discretionary spending may hesitate to use it on hiring a cleaning service or babysitter. There can be a lot of shame—and external judgment—surrounding hiring help when a family has a homemaking mother. But a business owner with too many orders to fill himself and the money to hire a part-time worker to meet demand would be unwise to try to do everything alone. The same is true of the stay-at-home mom who can afford to hire needed help but avoids it because of stigma.
Towards Maternal Flourishing
Understanding burnout as “a persistent mismatch between demands and resources” means that the thoughtful mother will also seek to foster her own physical and mental health, as well as her spiritual life. It is very good to prioritize sleep, spiritual growth, physical exercise, and a reasonably nurturing diet. All of these things help restore our internal resources when we are depleted.
Mothers must also guard against the one character trait that is particularly associated with burnout: perfectionism. This can be surprisingly difficult. Even a woman not otherwise inclined towards perfectionism may find herself setting impossibly high standards if she decides to stay home with her children. Because much of society is so dismissive of homemaking moms, it can be tempting to try to do everything “just right” in order to justify her decision to sacrifice a career. Instagram and Pinterest may influence us into believing that good moms make everything from scratch and have toddlers who happily consume asparagus. A homeschooling mother may feel pressure not merely to give her children a decent education, but to teach them Latin, advanced mathematics, rigorous science, choral singing, and practically the whole Western Canon. There is nothing wrong with doing any—or all—of those things, if the family values them and mom isn’t under too much strain. But if mom is crumbling under the weight of trying to do too much, it’s time to rethink the family’s priorities.
I find that one of the paradoxes of being a mother at home is that the harder I strive towards perfecting myself, my home, and my children, the worse things go. Conversely, the gentler and kinder I am to myself, the better able I am to encourage and support my little children. A mother’s work should be respected for the important and rigorous job it is. Ideally, the adults around her—her husband, extended family, and community—will remind her of the difficulty and importance of what she is doing, and provide emotional support and concrete assistance to protect her from the danger of burnout. If they don’t, unfortunately, she must do it herself.
In my own life, I am blessed by a husband who takes the work I do seriously and is quick to offer support. Still, ultimately, I have to decide what I can do–and what I can’t. When I struggle to do this, I think about my daughter. Like all children, she learns most from what I do, not what I say. What do I want to model for her? If she becomes a mother one day, what are my hopes for her? It’s a remarkably clarifying question.
I want my daughter to give herself grace, to lead a full and enjoyable life along with her caregiving responsibilities, and to take time to care for herself. And I know if I want that for her, I must first try to achieve it for myself.
