This post is about boundaries and the burnt-out Mom. This isn’t about the boundaries we need to set with parents, or at work, or with that one friend who only calls when they need something. This isn’t about the barriers we put up to keep people out. This is about how it feels to be a mom in modern times, how it confuses our abilities to have effective boundaries, and how it leads many of us to stress and burnout.
How do moms get a minute to themselves?
Recently, my husband told me that he was talking with a friend who just had their second baby. The friend asked, ‘How did your wife ever get a minute to herself with two kids?’
(Don’t you love to hear what your partner will say to a question like this? It has taken me a while to appreciate that his answer will always be different from mine, as his experience of things was different from mine.)
He said to her, ‘When the bathroom door was closed, that was her time, nobody was allowed to disturb her then.’
Which is really a nice way of saying, she didn’t get time to herself unless it lined up with the mandatory hygiene of life.
But we tried! We tried to get me time to myself when the kids were small.
We tried to both get time away, but there just wasn’t a lot of it.
So some days it was me sitting in the basement for seven minutes with headphones on.
Some days it was an afternoon coffee shop date with myself and my laptop
Some days it was stolen moments in a 4×7 bathroom, and the door was shut, and everyone knew that a shut door meant knock and wait.
Boundaries.
I think I am good at boundaries.
But I am probably getting it confused with stubbornness and energy-conservation.
Which are hallmarks of the Enneagram Type 9. We Type 9s are always trying to accomplish inner and outer peace, so we are also conserving our energy for these efforts. And this makes us a bit panicky (anxious) when our energy might be drawn by other things we haven’t allocated it for.
With three small kids, I was quick to set boundaries that helped me ensure I had an upper hand with managing my output as a mom. However, I also have three kids (with unique personalities and approaches to life), so I’ve learned that maintaining a boundary is often more work than not maintaining one (to put it another way, the upfront work of setting boundaries is a lot; ideally, once it is established then it becomes easier).
The other part of NOT setting boundaries for me is the fear of becoming burnt out. It is something I saw happen to my mom. I didn’t understand it for many years. But now that I am a mom, I see how slowly the water heats to a boil – you don’t always see the burnout approaching.
Burnout is something that women are more susceptible to, especially women in motherhood.
Look around at what our culture tells us motherhood needs to look like, and it is easy to see how overwhelming the expectations are, and how they seep into every aspect of our being.
From how our eyebrows look, to whether our toddler is sharing enough, to how organized our pantry is. But also, be sure to maintain a career, go to cycle class, have a social life, raise well-rounded kids, have a great marriage, and look good doing it!
Around this spot is where I want to go on a rant about how moms are told they can HAVE IT ALL! Then, they are tossed into a culture that has no social supports, no workplace policies to accommodate modern families, unrealistic standards for appearance, lack of affordable/accessible daycare, etc. that allows them to show up well in motherhood, work and personal lives.
But that is a different blog post for a different day.
Back to boundaries.
The mental load and the default parent
There are a lot of balls to juggle as a North American Parent. Often, it is the female partner who gets the message that all the balls are ours.
A couple of years ago I was feeling very overwhelmed and did a brain dump in my notes app.
I wrote out all the things that were on my mind (the mental load). It turned out to be a combo of tasks that had to get done or a struggle I was having. It was a list of 52 topics around parenting, home, work, personal life, friendships, family, health, and personal things.
If you asked me to remove three things from this list, like most women, I would struggle. Because the notion that these ‘things’ are my job/my role, is so deeply ingrained in me that giving them up would feel like giving up a part of my value as a human/mom.
Here are some of the things that were on my list that were less personal, so you get the idea. . . .
Think about your own ‘brain dump’ list; if you look at what is on it, you will see all the options where you have to struggle with boundaries.
Boundaries with our kids, with our families, with our friends, with our partners, with our jobs, and with ourselves.
Motherhood as identity, and as a measure of self-worth
As modern women, we are handed down so many expectations. We adopt them as our own, integrate them into our identity and sense of self-worth. Then we feel constantly overwhelmed to meet them, while also unable to release them from our task list.
(And I could insert another rant about the lingering patriarchy of White Evangelicalism that has spent the past century ‘reminding’ women that their sacred purpose is in motherhood and wifedom).
This is why boundaries are so hard, for moms especially. Who we are (moms) and what we do (motherhood) is tied into identity and therefore our sense of worth.
So, if our kid asks us for juice in the blue cup while we’re eating dinner, we might jump and get it. Then the other two kids will ask for the same thing, too.
“Good moms put their kids’ needs first”
If our partner asks if they can go golfing this weekend, we say ‘of course’.
“Good partners help give each other a break.”
(Are you also the mom who never asks for a break, herself? I was! Here is how it went)
The family wants to go in on a big present for the grandparents, so we pitch in.
Just cause we don’t have a ton of money doesn’t mean we shouldn’t contribute.
When our kid is sick, we will call in sick to work and put our own work behind.
After all, we probably aren’t the breadwinner in the family. It just makes sense for me to stay home today.
Had to drive kids to activities all evening, so dinner is take-out (again).
We will eat our burger while vowing to get better at meal prep so everyone can have healthy, balanced dinners, as they should.
At the end of the night, when we think about the options of laundry, reading a book, exercise, or couch rotting with a glass of wine,
We will feel like we made the wrong choice, no matter what we choose.
Little by little, we put our own needs and wishes on the back burner to make sure we are checking off (most) of the boxes on what it means to be a ‘good mom/wife/woman/whatever’
Boundaries are hard, so is a lack of boundaries
If we DO put in a boundary
Which can look like saying no, not rushing to do all the things, spending any time or money on ourselves, knowing someone is left with a task that is challenging for them
…..then the guilt slides on in and starts whispering to us.
The guilt feels so uncomfortable. We think it means we are doing it wrong.
The guilt used to keep us in line so we would please people and over-perform. The guilt is a form of panic, prompting us to take action out of fear that if we don’t, we will lose our relationship, value, identity, and safety.
The other downside of boundaries is that they are a lot of work.
We have to teach ourselves and those around us to do things differently, and it will almost always meet resistance from those who benefited from our lack of boundaries.
This is usually where we back down and just surrender the boundary. It doesn’t feel worth the work and the weight of all the emotions.
If we DON’T put up a boundary
Then we get resentful, feel like our life is all wrong (shame, blame, overwhelm), our bodies run down, and we get burnt out!
Because I am your Nerdy Girlfriend and Counsellor, I put it in a flow chart for us.
How boundaries help us
In talking with moms all over the world, for the past seven+ years, I can say that we all struggle with boundaries in some areas of our lives. This can be especially true for people pleasers and perfectionists (both different forms of the same thing).
Having boundaries is a way of PRESERVING RELATIONSHIPS.
They are limits on how much we will give in a situation.
They are the line in the sand that shows us where our generosity and loving help start to turn into martyrdom and resentment.
Boundaries help us take care of our own energy/time/space, which helps us maintain healthier relationships.
Starting with small boundaries is still starting
Fourteen+ years into motherhood, there are still kids who knock on my door when I am in the bathroom. Fourteen+ years into it, I am still saying (to the most persistent kid), ‘I’m in the bathroom, we can talk in a bit’.
It is a small boundary, but it matters to me, so I do the work to uphold it.
I can feel myself playing with other flexible boundaries in daily life.
Watching my kids feel uncomfortable doing a task they want me to step in take over for them. Not offering help and advice on the daily to save my family from the hassles of figuring out things like where the ketchup is in the fridge, or how to connect the bluetooth, or coming to their room to scratch their back for a third time that night.
Boundaries can bring up a lot of other topics that are worth talking about . . .
Our own upbringing, the boundaries we could or couldn’t have, the boundaries demonstrated to us by our caretakers.
It also brings up the ‘checklists’ we are living by (if you are a client of mine, you have heard me talk about the Good Mom Checklist – our own list of conscious and subconscious rules of what it means to be a “Good Mom”).
And it brings up how we deal with our own emotions, the emotions of our kids and partner, and how we communicate and set boundaries with love and compassion.
My advice for getting started:
Start small (shut the bathroom door),
talk with friends who seem to do it well,
bring it to your therapist for support (it is one of our specialities!)
More conversations on motherhood and burnout:
The Meeting Your Needs series (all the self-care discussions!)
The Enneagram and Motherhood series (how does your Enneagram type both empower you and hinder you in motherhood)
I stopped calling myself a lazy mom
I was a Mom Martyr, here’s how to tell if you are too and what to do about it
189. Prioritizing the day: if everything matters nothing matters and how to apply this in motherhood
