You do the best you can, but there are days when everything just feels too heavy. Between work, home, and trying to be present for my son, sometimes I wonder if I’m doing it right, if I’m dedicating enough time to him, if I should be doing things differently. It’s exhausting, but also beautiful. And I think a lot of moms feel this way.
I would love to hear how other moms experience it, how do you handle those days when everything piles up, and there’s just no break?
It’s like you give everything you have, and then somehow, it’s still not enough. I work full time, and by the time I get home, I feel like my kid is getting the worst version of me, tired, distracted, just trying to make it to bedtime without losing my patience. And then the guilt kicks in because, like, am I actually spending quality time with him? Or am I just rushing through the motions?
Some days, I let go of the pressure to do it all. If dinner is frozen pizza, it’s frozen pizza. If bedtime is 30 mins later because we were actually having fun, so be it. I try to remind myself that my presence matters more than perfection. But yeah, it’s hard. And I don’t think that feeling ever fully goes away
I feel this so much, but I promise, it gets better. Maybe not in the way you expect, but in the way you learn to manage it. I was drowning in the Am I enough? spiral too, until I started making small shifts. One thing that helped? Setting a mom guilt timer. Seriously, I give myself 10 minutes to feel bad, and then I move on. Because the truth is, kids don’t need constant, perfect attention. They need a parent who shows up, even in the small ways.
Try finding tiny pockets of connection, a silly handshake, a quick cuddle, a let’s be statues for one minute game while you cook. Those little things? They add up more than an extra hour of scheduled quality time. You’re doing better than you think