Carrying the Load: Why Mothers’ Nervous Systems Are at the Breaking Point.
Last weekend, I took the boys to the beach. While we were there, the family next to us started packing up their shibumi. They had two boys, like me, but the mom and dad were both present. The father’s voice became elevated. “No shit!” he said, dripping with sarcasm. Then “God dammit, I told you not to put it there!” I kept my eyes averted, but turned so I could see who he was talking to. It was the mother. The boys were frozen. My eleven year old could see my mind working. “Don’t say anything mom.” I assured him I wouldn’t. Not with the father present. But I wanted to tell her: Start making a plan. Mine took ten years. But I did it. Slowly. First a graduate coaching certificate. Then a masters degree. Then two years as an associate. Slowly, building. Biding my time. Until I could afford to take care of my boys and me. She had probably married her trauma. After all, it’s what we do. But she doesn’t have to stay married to it. So many mothers live like this.
Last month, I did a podcast interview in which I explained the scientific reason why people marry their trauma, how to recognize codependence in yourself, and how to begin to break it. So many people said it hit home for them. One woman, a mother of two, told me she prayed for a sign that it was time to leave her relationship. A few minutes later, unbeknownst to me, I texted her the podcast. She said that she recognized herself in the pattern I described. She said what resonated most for her was the codependency. She realized she felt responsible for making her partner see her, and then realized that in order to set herself free, she had to let him go. She ended the relationship a few days later. I asked her how it felt in her body. “Peaceful” she said. To which I replied “Then you know it was the right decision.” Here’s what enabled her to do it: she is the breadwinner for her family.
Last fall an article in The Cut went viral: “The Women Quietly Quitting Their Husbands.” Journalist Monica Corcoran Harel reported on women in midlife who have emotionally detached from their marriages but stay: not because things have improved, but because leaving costs too much. Mothers, especially those who are in relationships where they aren’t respected, or worse, coercively controlled or abused, have it hardest of all. Even without these destabilizing relationships, the average mother is carrying most of the load: either working full time, then coming home to the second shift. Or staying home and giving her body, brains, and nervous system over to her children all day long, which is a whole other level of exhaustion. I’ve done both. I can remember when my eleven year old was two-and-a-half and couldn’t go to preschool anymore because he was so anxious. I shut my practice down and spent every moment of every day with him. I had to get up at five am and go for a run, before his dad went to work, just so I would have enough oxygen to make it through the day playing with a child who didn’t want to go outside. I almost lost my mind. I gave, and gave. And gave some more. And then collapsed into bed at night completely exhausted. Just to wake up and do it again. That planted a seed in me. I knew I couldn’t be the only one. We were meant to raise children collectively. Not isolated in a house, without a community to support us, carrying the load all alone.
So who has the power to change this? We do. The mothers. We need to raise our boys better. They need to do chores around the house. They need to be taught to regulate their emotions, take turns, and be respectful, especially to women and girls. They need to be educated on the load that women carry and be taught to lighten it. Yes, I am teaching my boys all of these things. So that someday, their partners will have an equal coparent, a willing partner, and, for the first time in who knows how many generations, won’t have to walk on eggshells. This may feel like more to do on top of everything we are already carrying. But it’s where our power lies. When the boy leaves his clothes on the floor, set the boundary: Before you pick up that video game controller, pick up your clothes. It’s “I am the Queen, and you are the princes.” Not “You are the King, and I am your maid.”
Our mothers are sinking. The nervous system of the mother is the nervous system of the children. Mothers are the backbones of any society. Without mothers, we don’t have a society. There is no future. We need to invest in mothers, and maternal mental health, like our lives depend on it. Like our future depends on it. Because it does. And no one is coming to save us. So we need to save each other. We need to put our judgement of other women down and raise each other up. So that no more mothers have to face the prospect of broken hearts, broken minds, or broken spirits. Too many women feel broken. It’s time for us to heal each other whole.
