According to research from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), mums are now working more paid hours than they have in recent decades, in order to hold down careers that they had put years of dedication in to before deciding to start a family, but also because life is so expensive now, many of us can’t afford not to. Recent research from the University of Bath also highlights how working mothers hold 67% more of the mental load at home; organising, scheduling, planning, compared to working fathers. The reality of doing all this juggling is challenging, and a lot of the time, something has got to give. It tends to be our sanity. Joking…well kind of.
So, hands up if you’ve been trying to work as many hours that you can squeeze in to the shortest amount if time? Yep, been there. Hands up if you’re working from home and doing the house jobs in the moments break you get away from the computer? Guilty. Hands up if you’re dashing away from the office the moment you finish work to go do the school or nursery run, changing straight out of your work hat and whacking on your Mum hat, on the slant because you’ve still got ‘it’, but you’re straight in to it and that’s you until bed time? I hear you, sister.
I think it’s amazing that women have the ability to do this and have the passion and dedication to doing both. But, I’ve seen it a lot where this leads to burnout, in a big way. I saw it in myself and I see it in my friends, colleagues and patients.
When I took a step back and asked myself why I was so at the end of my rope, I realised I wasn’t looking after me, at all. This is the bit that is often missed out as it’s the easiest thing to cut out. If we don’t do the chores, the house is disgusting and things build up and that is stressful. We run out of food, clothes, plates, cutlery, get dust and bits of crushed snacks on our feet when we walk anywhere in the house, so that’s not a good option. We have to keep up with the kids so there’s no cutting corners there. We can’t just not work as we need the money and if you’re like me, you need to do so many hours a week to keep your job, so can’t cut that out either. So we slowly reduce the things that look after us, without realising.
In my work with low mood, how we spend our time is a really important area to explore, because if the balance is off, our mood can be affected. When becoming a parent, everything completely shifts and we have to start fresh with our routine that is now governed by this little person.
If all of this is resonating with you, it is not a simple solution but it involves making some adjustments and/or considering what your needs are and how they could be met, given your circumstances. A good starting point is looking at your current routine; what makes up my routine? when do I do chores? when do I do the essentials like showering and washing my hair? when and how do I do the food shop? When would be a better time to get certain tasks done? Are there any ways I can cut corners or make some things easier for myself?
For me, some of the solutions were small things like scheduling the dishwasher and washing machine to be loaded and unloaded at a set time of day, getting the foodshop delivered, getting a cleaner once a month to help me with the bathrooms that I couldn’t stay on top of and showering at night to relieve some of the pressure in the mornings. A much bigger solution was that I needed to ask for help and to communicate what I needed and when. I had to say that I need a break and some time to myself, I stopped working evenings as it was burning me out, I needed to plan more things that were part of who I was before having children or look at new things that I wanted to try now. I had to actually say out loud what I needed, then I needed to book it and do it, instead of assuming everyone around me could read my mind (and mood!). It is a work in progress and I’m still figuring it out, but it has helped. It has pushed me out of my comfort zone, it felt weird, I didn’t like asking for help, but the benefits on my mood outweighed the discomfort of me asking.
Start small, even the small changes can make a big difference.
Emma x
Leave a Reply