With a global community of over 3.5 million, parenting courses that have helped more than half a million families, and the hit After Bedtime podcast, Big Little Feelings’ Deena Margolin and Kristin Gallant are the de facto architects of healthy parenting in the digital age. In this raw and urgent essay—on the heels of Maternal Mental Health Month—Deena and Kristin confront the unsustainable realities mothers face today—and call for a cultural reckoning.
Earlier this week, a damning new study was published in JAMA Internal Medicine: Over a recent seven-year period, the mental health of mothers dropped steeply. In 2016, when the survey of upwards of 200,000 women began, one in 20 mothers reported her mental health as “poor” or “fair.” By 2023, that number shot up to one in 12. We are in a crisis.
As parenting coaches, these staggering numbers are not surprising to us at all. Even those of us who are fortunate—the definition of privileged—are drowning. (Though we would be remiss to ignore that “mental and physical health status was significantly lower for single female parents, those with lower educational attainment, and those with publicly insured children,” as reported in the study.) It is the exception to the rule if your head is above water. But it does not have to be this way.
For a long time, motherhood has been an invisible labor. We grew up with the idea that girls can do anything, but it didn’t set us up for success. We shouldn’t have to do everything. And we can’t—no one can. In fact, we are the first generation to be managing children, a home, a partner, and an ambitious career. On top of that, doing it all is supposed to look easy and flawless, and if it doesn’t, it means you’re failing.
At the same time, there are no structures in place to help mothers thrive. There’s no federally mandated paid leave. In most major US cities, childcare for two kids costs more than rent. So we’re expecting mothers to look great, feel great, get their bodies back, be happy, put a smile on, work really hard, and do it all with absolutely no support.
We can’t do it anymore. We need help. Real help. And while the biggest and most effective changes here would come from legislation, there are ways mothers can keep tabs on our own mental health—by having raw conversations with yourself, and in community with each other.
Here is where it can start.
Acknowledge that motherhood does not equal martyrdom.
Many of us saw our moms drive themselves ragged into the ground. That was the norm: Our model was pure burnout—not someone who puts their needs first, or someone who asks their partner or grandma or neighbor when they cannot shoulder it alone. Instead, we start off motherhood with years of resentment. (Years…and years…and years of it.) We need to flip that coin and say, This is not enough. We need to not take on what our own moms automatically did—which was everything, but begrudgingly. It starts with that.
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