Being a mom is really hard. It’s an often thankless job that never gives you an opportunity to clock out. So many of us work ourselves to the bone to keep our families safe and happy, often to our own detriment. And the way modern motherhood is designed, it’s no surprise that many moms feel themselves suffering from intense burnout with no end in sight. One such mom, Kylie Grimes, did something shocking about it: She called the police. And in sharing her story, she shined a light on the plight of moms everywhere.
Grimes, a mom of four, shared her story on TikTok. The post shows porch camera footage of Grimes sitting outside with a first responder in a moment of complete surrender.
In the post’s caption, she explained that it was 9:45 p.m. and she still hadn’t managed to get dinner on the table for her kids. They had been fighting for most of the day. Her husband was working late far away from home to help support the family, including two kids who have diabetes. And it all came to a head when she found the baby choking.
“In a panic, I swept his mouth, pulled out a bug stick halfway down his throat, rinsed him out, and called poison control,” she wrote. “The poor guy on the other end of the phone was met with a mom who hadn’t slept in months, already drowning in the weight of a diabetic baby and another diagnosis hanging in the air. I kept saying over and over: ‘I can’t keep him alive. I can’t keep him alive.’”
She admitted that she “spiraled” after hanging up the phone. “Everything hit me at once.” And that’s when she realized she had hit her limit. Her husband Kyle was still a half hour away from home, but in that moment, it felt like an “eternity.”
That’s when she decided to call 911. “When the dispatcher asked what the emergency was, I said: ‘Me,’” she wrote.
Grimes then sat on her porch, “sobbing” and holding her baby. Soon, both the first responder and her husband arrived at the home. “Suddenly I was surrounded by people kneeling down, letting me plead my case, letting me vent, cry, and lose my sanity for a moment,” she wrote.
In her post, the mom explained that she never once felt suicidal or that she was going to harm her children. “I just wanted an out,” she explained.
“I just needed relief,” Grimes told Today. “I needed the fear of trying to keep this baby alive to just subside for just a minute — I needed to just have a minute and come back in and collect myself.”
Kylie and Kyle Grimes have four children: 11-year-old Ellie, 10-year-old Royal, 6-year-old Goldie, and 13-month-old Noble. Both Goldie and Noble have “unicorn” cases of diabetes, which the family works hard to manage. Kylie actually started her TikTok account to share their journey as a family of two diabetic kids. But in her quest to be everything to everyone, she forgot about herself.
“Kylie’s the only one that I’m scared for. It’s so much harder on her,” Kyle Grimes told Today. “Kylie’s the one that’s going through the hardest of anyone because she has to be there when no one else is available to keep the kids alive.”
The mom’s TikTok went viral, with thousands of comments full of people with nothing but empathy and care. But it’s important to note how despite all of that, not much has changed for the mom.
After her 911 call, a crisis therapist called. According to Grimes, the therapist was “completely unprepared for the kind of trauma I unloaded on her.” Following the call, she went back to living her life and taking care of her children.
But now, months after the incident, Grimes said she has learned an important lesson.
“My husband and I realized that we have to start asking for help,” she shared with Today. “We have to stop shouldering this by ourselves. The best thing that has happened to me in this situation is that I haven’t felt alone.”
