“In general, when I complain that I am having trouble taking care of everything, I would just like for people to acknowledge that motherhood is hard. I don’t always needs suggestions or solutions; I just need acknowledgment of my feelings.”
Moms Are Underpaid :: An Interactive Discussion {Plus WIN a Staycation!}
While parenting has always been a challenging endeavor, it is safe to say that the COVID-19 pandemic created numerous additional stressors for the modern family. Without much warning at all, and with no handbook on how to parent during a pandemic, parents were
abruptly given stay-at-home orders and forced to figure out how to effectively (or not so effectively) work from home while also juggling the demands of childcare, schoolwork and household responsibilities. Of course, this all occurred against the backdrop of a very scary time in history when anxiety and fear were ever present. No one knew how to do this, and everyone was quite literally guessing at the next right thing. “Motherhood, working, being a wife for me is definitely a build the ship while it sails adventure,” remarked one local mom.
As we slowly emerge from this unique period of time and return to some normalcy, it is clear that moms are carrying a lot of valid (and heavy) emotions and attempting to process the experience. In general, moms are reporting high levels of stress, remarking repeatedly that they feel burnt out, overwhelmed and quite frankly real tired of making decisions.
I’m so sick of making decisions. It was up to me to decide my family’s level of comfort with Covid restrictions, what to do about daycare, if we were socializing or not, etc. I make big decisions all day at work, and then every single decision at home falls on me too. My husband will literally ask me if he should open or close the blinds. It’s draining.
Another interesting dynamic that surfaced is the division of labor within the home when suddenly everyone was home all the time and the lines between work, home and daycare were blurred. As one mom shared, “With COVID, my husband’s full-time, higher-salary job obviously took precedent over mine, which made perfect sense, but left me feeling resentment that although we were both working from home, I was still the primary parent that had to drop everything for childcare.”
Join The Conversation
With all of these feelings in mind, we teamed up with our friends at the Building Us podcast to have a meaningful conversation about how parents are feeling post pandemic. We want to celebrate our amazing community of New Orleans moms while also acknowledging that the past year in particular has been exceedingly difficult. So pull up a chair and listen to our conversation … and then we’d love for you to join in, too!
Who Wants a Staycation?
In addition to facilitating this important conversation, we’d also love to spoil two lucky New Orleans moms at Mother’s Day this year … we want to hear from YOU.
To enter to win a staycation ::
- Please share what piece of this conversation stood out the most to you. What would you add to the conversation? What topics resonated with you? Please leave your thoughts in a comment on this post. There are no right or wrong answers as we learn motherhood together.
- After commenting, please provide your name and email below so that we can get in touch with you should you be one of the lucky staycation winners! You MUST complete both steps to be eligible to win a staycation as part of the New Orleans Mom & Building Us Podcast Mother’s Day tribute.
Thank you to the following local New Orleans area properties for partnering with us to spoil two lucky moms. We recognize that it has been a tough year, and just for being part of the conversation, you have a chance to win one of the following incredible prizes.
Higgins Hotel :: one night stay in a Studio Suite Plus AND a $25 dollar voucher for Rosie’s on the Roof {Restrictions – based on availability of rooms when reservation is requested; most weekends are high demand and may not have available dates. Certificate is valid for 6 months through the end of October 2021. Total Prize Value of $600}
Southern Hotel :: $300 gift certificate / property credit {2 blackout dates: August 21 and December 31. The rest will be subject to hotel availability. Winner may use the gift card however they’d like; $300 will cover 1 night on a weekend with a little bit left for a drink at the bar OR the winner could opt to use it during the week and maybe get 2 nights OR winner can spend it all in the bar!}
I loved the estimate of what a mom would have to be paid to cover all the work she does! Of course, I know the mental and physical toll this takes along with the irreplaceable nature of this so I certainly think moms/primary caregivers deserve much more.
When you said that it take a partnership to raise kids. It is impossible for most Americans to raise children on a single income household. 46% of Americans make less than 30k a year and the average cost of living for a family of 4 is at least 54k a year. Saddly there is no room in modern America for families where one parent works and one can stay home to raise kids.
My husband works shift work so most of the parenting falls on me, especially when he’s on nights. We have had to go virtual a few times and we had to rely on our families help since we both work. I just don’t know how people have made it through this past year if they don’t have any family or friends to help!? Hopefully this will just be a crazy memory we all have stored away and things can get back to normal very soon!
The part that stuck out to me was how the husband’s higher paying job was seen as more important than hers. Both my husband and I are teachers, but he works at a high school while I work with preschoolers. During the pandemic I had a lot more leniency with my class than he did. Even then we still made all of our decisions together. I know this isn’t always the case, but it makes me thankful to have had that privilege during such a stressful time. We joke that the pandemic was the best thing to happen to our family, but really, as educators it was nice to work with our daughter in a way we hadn’t been able to before. I always try to be mindful when holding hear conversations with others, especially when the mother is spread thin while I wasn’t. Now that we are both full time in the classroom again, things have shifted some. I am expected to make the final decisions on meals, school, summer camp, trips, when we go anywhere, pretty much any family choice, which is hard considering I suffer from terrible anxiety and adhd and find decision making difficult. I know this is because he has a full day, plus practice after school with his track/cross country boys, and I’m very vocal when it’s too much. He does his best, but I wish sometimes I could afford the help to pick up both of our slack.
This was a great conversation – two moms with different situations but shared feelings. Communication with our partner is key but sometimes we are so tired there aren’t words. After working from home and caring for kids plus elderly grandparents, there isn’t time to think about what is needed. Overwhelmed and exhausted are the words that occur in almost every discussion I have with other moms.
I certainly agree that moms are underpaid… Alot of mothers and son fathers certainly bear the load of the family work. Additionally, I feel that working mothers are often overlooked in regard to doing all the household responsibilities each week on top of a 40+ hour work week. No matter what version you are living, mothers are often under paid and under valued.
I have to giggle when I hear…I’m tired of making decisions. It’s so true! I do believe most Moms have been given the responsibility of figuring it all out. One day, I will treasure all the time I had with my kids (like I did with my oldest after Katrina). But for now, I’m just surviving!
The part that stuck with me was being tired of making all the decisions and resenting my husband for his job taking precedence over all. He is required to work a week on and a week off. Half of the time I was alone with my two young children. I didn’t really know how to explain this to them because honestly I didn’t fully understand it myself. They constantly wanted to play with friends and I struggled having to keep them home.
On top of all of this I am trying to navigate homeschooling them for the first time. Unfortunately my youngest hurt the most because she was only in Pre K 4 and there really wasn’t much for her to do on the computer. I had to focus on helping my first grader. Looking back I feel awful for feeling like I had to choose. This year in kindergarten she struggled a lot! She even has a tutor come twice a week. I felt like the kids went back to school and were expected to carry on instead of brushing up on some things. This school year has definitely been a struggle especially trying to navigate it on my own.
“His fishing depletes me”. Yes I feel that. His out of home extracurriculars are good (sports gym golf tournaments etc) but I’m the one home as default. Like going to play golf, that’s a whole day. There’s a tendency as moms if we are going somewhere to check first to be sure dad will be home. Where in reverse it’s just assumed we’ll be home and they can go fish/golf/run errands.
There are so many things that hit home for me here, but I think that stuck out to me most.
I love when people want to help out since I am a single mom with 3 boys, living 2 hours from any family. But sometimes I get anxiety about help because when people “help” it makes more work for myself later and then I have to thank them for helping and I may have a bit of animosity toward them for it. I also seem to distance myself from them afterwards for it. #momguilt