It was spring of 2019 when my daughter turned 8 and requested a Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? theme for her party. I had done a deep dive on kids’ snack foods from around the globe and had spent the morning preparing them, while also hanging balloons and turning our guest bedroom into an escape room. I had just finished decorating 36 made-from-scratch red velvet cupcakes before I went upstairs to take a shower and change for the party.
That’s when my daughter started projectile vomiting
I think back now to the day of my daughter’s canceled birthday party
By the time I finished scrubbing the carpeted stairs, I remember feeling physically weak. In fact, I often collapsed into bed, fully depleted by the challenges of the day, during my daughter’s entire first decade of life.
I can talk a lot about the “invisible workload” and gender disparity in parenting (and, believe me, I do), but there’s something I now realize about the way I had unconsciously chosen to approach mothering. The prolonged low-level stress the doctor referred to had begun years ago. I had an extremely stressful marriage with my now-ex-husband even before my daughter was born. It was further compounded by stress in my career — I was in the middle of grad school and a mid-30s career change when I got pregnant.
But then this other job came along — the most challenging and important job I’d ever have — motherhood
I could lose myself in this job. The amount of research available to me to prepare for it was bottomless, and there was literally no end to the list of ways one could go the extra mile. If things were spiraling out of control in my marriage and my career, then this — this mothering role — was something I could succeed at, even if it killed me… literally.
Fortunately, I have a wonderfully spirited child who wasn’t going to let me feel in control of anything. And eventually, I could see that it wasn’t good for her to have a mom who couldn’t stand up without getting dizzy during the dual whammy of divorce and a global pandemic.
I’m so grateful that mommy burnout is being talked about more and more now. Since I came back from it and reversed my diagnoses, I get to start every day deciding how I’m going to take care of myself so that I can be the best mother I can be — now and for the long haul.
