Mothers deserve the utmost respect for dedicating so much time and energy to raising a child. Being a stay at home mother can be an overwhelming experience, and it can sometimes lead to the development of stress or mental health problems.
In addition to this, a lot of mothers try to put on their ‘happy face,’ all the while struggling with taking care of kids, juggling a million errands, and running on minimal amounts of sleep. In this article, we’re going to talk about some of the hardships of being a stay-at-home mother and some of the tips that could help other mothers maintain their sanity.
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Hardships of Being a Stay-at-Home Mother
There are a lot of reasons that it’s hard to be a stay at home mother. Here are some of the most pressing issues of being a stay-at-home mother.
You’re not getting paid! Despite mommying being a full-time job, you’re not getting paid for it. This can be a bit discouraging for any mother who has fully acknowledged that they’re not going to get a paycheck at the end of a hard week of raising children.
- You’re working 24/7. You might not have to stay up 24/7, but you’re certainly going to be on-call around the clock. If your baby wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, as they almost inevitably will, then you’re going to have to wake up and figure out what they need.
- There are no breaks! You can’t just put your child on pause and take a break from raising them. Once you’ve signed up for raising a kid, then you’ve got to keep raising it until it’s able to raise itself. This can take years, and for a stay at home mother, this can be a stressful reality.
- You don’t get enough credit. Babies don’t appreciate all the hard work that you put into raising them, and probably won’t even acknowledge the effort that you put into making food, cleaning their diapers, and keeping their living space safe and sanitary.
- There’s not enough time for yourself. Stay at home moms often don’t get enough time for themselves, because they’re always taking care of their babies. If they do want to do something on their own, they likely have a child distracting them while they try and do it or they have to fork over money to a babysitter to hold down the fort while they go out to enjoy themselves for a night.
What Can I Do?
If that’s not enough to scare you away from having kids don’t worry. As many of you know, I’m a stay at home mother and I’ve done pretty fine raising my kids. One of the best ways I managed to do this was by seeking help from a psychotherapist, which I found via the E-counseling directory.
There are lots of ways that a therapist helped me minimize the stress of raising a child.
- They provided me with a lot of stress management techniques to help me better handle things when they get overwhelming.
- They can provide emotional management techniques to help you better understand and react to your emotions instead of lashing out or getting depressed because of your responsibilities.
- They can help to bring perspective to the whole experience of raising a child and help you see the positives instead of the negatives.
- A family therapist can also help you learn skills and techniques for raising a well-connected, emotionally secure family.
If you’re raising a child, then there’s no harm in seeing a therapist. The worst that will happen is that you’ll decide you’re fine on your own. More likely, they will provide you with the knowledge to make the process of parenting much easier.
I'm a stay-at-home aunt with two nephews and can understand to a certain level how you feel! I know the hardships my own sister goes through with her kids, and I absolutely salute you moms everywhere. <3
ReplyDeleteHi Hazel,
DeleteThank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this. It's tiring but fulfilling at the same time :) Thank you!!!