5 Ways to Stay Afloat When Motherhood is Drowning You

Mom?

Mom.

Moooom.

Mom. 

Her voice seeps around the bathroom door and finds me, in the shower.

Mom?

She knows the rules, so I ignore her first attempts hoping she will remember them, but it’s apparent this persistent child is not giving up.  She’s not yelling, not angry in her moming, just incessant.

Mooom.

Mom?

I respond calmly, gauging by her tone that she is not bleeding and there are no broken bones.  “I’m in the shower.  Unless it’s an emergency, you need to wait until I get out.”  My showers are quick, typically even completed before my kids are awake.  But not today.  A couple minutes of peace, without continual interruption, isn’t too much to ask, is it?

Apparently, it depends on who you ask.

Her reply is quick, but calculated. “Okay, Mom.  I was just wondering if I can wear the red sparkly dress today or if I should wear pants?”

 

See what she just did there?  That is not an emergency.  But it’s such a simple question.

My point?  There is little reprieve in this job as mom.  My kids exhaust me in so many ways.  They challenge me mentally and physically.  Behavioral training can seem paradoxical at times. Training them to be disciplined requires an incredible amount of discipline on my own part – to be pragmatic and consistent, yet caring and full of grace.  The sum total of that, day in and day out, feels like work.

I’m leveling, not complaining here.  The magnitude of this work is incredible.  The opportunity to raise a world changer, a truth teller, a faithful someday spouse – to train the minds of the next generation of leaders, impact their hearts, influence their world, is incredible.  Yet still, incredibly exhausting as well.

So how does one survive bravely when lost deep in the trenches of motherhood, battling each day to do this well, with some degree of patience and grace?

5 Ways to Stay Afloat When Motherhood Threatens to Drown You

1. Come up for air.  Sometimes we think we can breathe sea water and do just fine, push on, charge through, but it doesn’t work out so well.  Breathing outside the walls of home, outside your role as mom, actually recharges your soul enabling you to do your mama job even better.  In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert discusses how border collies need productive work to do or they can become destructive animals.  She argues that people aren’t all that different:

“I firmly believe we all need to find something to do in our lives that stops us from eating the couch.  Whether we make a profession out of it or not, we all need an activity that is beyond the mundane and that takes us out of our established and limiting roles in society (mother, employee, neighbor, brother, boss, etc.)  We all need something that helps us to forget ourselves for a while – to momentarily forget our age, our gender, our socioeconomic background, our duties, our failures, and all that we have lost and screwed up.”

While I don’t necessarily like the idea of calling motherhood a limiting role, Gilbert makes a great point here.  Pursuing our passions, developing our skills and talents and learning new things, when balanced within our priorities, are life-giving and keep us from drowning in the mundane.  They help us find air when we suck in too much sea water.  Pick up a book or listen to a podcast, start a workout plan, learn, grow – it doesn’t matter what it is, just breathe some fresh air into those lungs of yours so you don’t, you know, eat the couch.

2. Keep an eye on the shore.  You know it won’t always be this difficult, right?  This parenting job changes and morphs continually.  Your kids are growing faster than you realize and before you know it this season, this stage, will pass.  The next one may not be a whole lot easier, but you will survive, I promise.  Keeping an eye on the shore gives you that perspective.  My oldest son turns 11 in a few weeks.  On one hand I stand in awe of how quickly that happened, but its also a great reminder that – it’s happening!  This thing I’m trying to do – trying to raise decent humans, trying to train and love them well, it’s happening.  Their time in my home is limited and with every passing day they are closer to being gone. (Don’t park there too long, friend, or we’ll both start crying.) Don’t lose sight of the shore.

3. Swim.  Right now, right where you are, swim.  Will your legs and arms to move and start swimming.  No matter how messy the house is, no matter how behind you feel, no matter how much you messed up yesterday, take the next good step and get going.  Trying to swim an ocean, like trying to be a good mom, takes faithfulness.  One stroke at a time, one day at a time, faithfulness.  You will get derailed.  You will feel like a champ at times and like a total loser at others, maybe even in the same day, but part of your job is , regardless of feelings, to just keep swimming.  (Thank you for that, Dory!)

4. Know when to float.  So if you swim until you can’t swim anymore and then you drown, things don’t end so well.  Sometimes motherhood is just too much.  Sometimes we feel in over our heads, stretched too thin, wound too tight and we’re spinning our wheels.  That is not just motherhood, that is life.  And this is when we require a good back float.  A little reprieve.  Phone a friend, level with your husband, call your mama, whatever you need to do to call in some support troops for an hour or two so you can catch your breath.  You don’t get to float everyday, maybe not even every week, but in order to do this job well you must be brave enough to ask for help before you are entirely spent and useless.  (Full disclosure:  I’m still working on this one.)

5. Pray.  If I were drowning in the ocean or stuck on a boat with no sign of rescue, Unbroken style, I’d be throwing down those big and wild prayers just like Zamperini did.  Wouldn’t you?  Motherhood is no different, friends.  Somedays it feels like we are fighting for our sanity, we are struggling to keep our cool and some semblance of order, we are digging deep for more patience, more smiles, more grace and, my goodness, how could we ever be enough for this task?  But, God.  Pray with out ceasing, Mamas.  He sees you.

So there is no need to drown, friends.  You are doing just fine.  Sure you can do better, we can all do a little better and by God’s grace we will, as long as we just keep swimming.

Swimming right along with you. ❤️