Calling All Moms – Are You Okay?
It’s not just you – the pandemic has raised stress for all parents and anxiety is at an all-time high. Varying levels of social distancing orders are still in place, which has resulted in closed daycares, new back to school challenges and virtual workplaces.
Parents now have to find ways to keep their kids entertained, manage a new reality of distance learning and try to find balance when kids are always around – a.k.a. no break! Throw in COVID-19 and the family all together under the same roof 24/7, and you have a recipe for a perfect storm.
Whether you’re a professional mom, a seasoned mom of multiples or expecting your first baby, prioritizing your emotional care isn’t easy. We rounded up a list of mama lifelines to help you survive when all the odds are against you.
Set Boundaries To Protect Your Mental Health
Now is the time to lower the bar and give yourself grace when you simply cannot make one more meal, get through your child’s schoolwork or attend another Zoom meeting. For some moms, this may be uncharted territory.
However, the pressure to be the perfect mom at this unprecedented stressful time could absolutely break you. Instead, pick a few important tasks to complete each day, and let the rest go! Also, here are ways to engage your child so you can catch some “alone” time:
- Lovevery provides stage-based early learning and play essentials, up to age 3.
- Raddish Kids is a fun cooking club for kids.
- Flexable offers interactive, virtual childcare.
Join Forces With Other Moms
Stay at home moms have historically been pitted against working moms. Today, parents are also at odds with teachers, who are overwhelmingly women, struggling with the very same issues, while we debate how and if school should open.
Don’t miss the bigger picture. Moms should be sharing resources and working together to fight for expanded sick leave, fund the childcare industry and protect working parents’ livelihood. If you’re looking for communities of moms who get it, check these out:
- MotherNation creates spaces for Mothers to care for themselves and each other by gathering circles based on location, age of children and shared experience.
- Mother Honestly is an online community, with resources and support for working mothers.
- Chairman Mom is a private network of badass working women.
Ask Daddy To Step It Up
Not all households have a mom and dad, but when they do, responsibilities still fall unevenly on moms in 2020. Today, childcare and home duties have only increased, moms are picking up the slack and it’s stealing your Zen. However, couples can divvy up the work more fairly with these tools:
- Modern Village builds the “Family Operating System” as a central place that isn’t mom’s brain to be the single source of all things family.
- Fair Play helps couples divide up household tasks fairly, based on their needs.
- Persistiny allows parents to track, value, and share the unpaid work to care for their families.
If you’re reading this daddy, here are some things you can do proactively to show mama how much you value her:
- Take on more housework. Even if it feels like you are doing your fair share, pick up one or two more tasks a day.
- Ask her how she feels. Is she drowning? To avoid adding to her already overflowing mental load, come to the conversation with two ideas for how you could help.
- Take the kids out of the house to give her some time to just reset.
- Here’s a big one – say thank you! Say thank you for the things you see her doing and even the things you don’t … the empty sink, the clean laundry and the uninterrupted business call. Make it your goal to show continual gratitude.
We know this just scratches the surface. There is no silver bullet solution to such a complex situation. But, when everyone pitches in to help, moms will make it through this stronger, and our children will reap the benefits.