Dear Mom,

Every single day you are walking a fine line of “doing it all”, and that fine line falls between burnout and FOMO.

In the never ending chase of trying to do everything you can for your family – prioritizing their happiness, a quality home life, and variety of experiences – while also constantly being told by social media that you “need to carve out some time for self-care” because you “can’t pour from and empty cup” even though nearly every mom can tell you from one point or another that you absolutely pour from an empty cup when you need to.

Here’s my classic scenario: I need an hour or two – maybe to decompress, clean up, do a little work or just GET THINGS DONE. No problem, my husband gives me the *say no more* and starts getting the girls ready to go to the park or on a walk or other xyz activity. Then suddenly my brain goes “hey…I want to go for a walk too!” Even writing this now I can hear Jon and the girls laughing from the other room and I wish I was there to hear the punchline!

We just had a week straight of snow (nothing monumental, but much more than our area typically gets) and between staying off the roads for a few days, the cancellation of all of our usual activities and play spots, and the dressing/undressing debacle for a 20 minute play session in the snow that may or may not end in tears, the irritability was compounding.

Jon was a kid in a candy store getting to build a giant snowman with the girls while I had a chance to ease my pregnant-lady lower back pain with a heating pad and type up this blurb. So why was I looking out the window and feeling like I was missing out on all the fun they were having? What kind of sick and twisted mindset is this that is just made to give us moms no rest?

Okay, maybe that was dramatic, but it’s a hard feeling to grapple with when your mind won’t let “getting what you want” actually be enjoyable. Because it’s not that I ever really want time away from my kids, but sometimes it’s nice to still be able to do the things I want to do or just not always have the responsibility and logical me knows that everything can’t always happen at once and be cohesive.

I can tell the only times I truly feel frustrated like I “want a break” is when I have an expectation for things I want to get done and it just isn’t happening that day…but ultimately, isn’t that just parenting? So what do we do about it? Here are my thoughts:

• It’s time to get real with ourselves about how much we can accomplish in a given time period so we don’t start off on the wrong foot with unrealistic expectations
• Try not to view it as you missing out, but your partner or other trusted caregiver to get some quality time with your favorite people (as a SAH/WFH mom I sometimes forget that my husband has 50+ hours a week of giggles and silliness that he might not get to see, and he deserves that too!)
• Recognize when you’re feeling irritable or on the road to burning out and take a smaller break as soon as you can so it doesn’t turn into a bigger problem! We don’t always have the luxury at pressing pause at our first inconvenience, but taking a few minutes for a solo bath that evening or a target run on your own that weekend is better than waiting until you explode at the end of the month. Even just clearing your calendar and taking the littles with you for an ice cream where you can turn off “to-do list” mom and just have fun counts!

Where are you falling on the FOMO-Balanced-Burnout scale today?