The Hidden Feelings: Why Mother's are stressed
In "The Hidden Feelings of Motherhood" Kathleen Kendall-Tackett talks about the stressors we experience as mothers. She lists the below. Do any of these apply to you, your mothering community, or do you have different ones?
Too Much, Too Many: i.e. too many people in a confined space, leading to lines, traffic, and pollution; too much stimulation in the way of advertisements, billboards, etc.
Driving: Mothers drive children to school, extracurricular activites, appointments, etc.
House: housing costs that dictate many other lifestyle choices such as type of job person takes, hours being worked, and commuting distance.
Paper: An average person handles about 300 sheets of paper per day. According to some estimates, we spend an average of eight months in our lives sorthing through junk mail alone.
Work: Americans work too much. We have recently surprassed the Japanese, and now have the longest work week of any industrialized nation.
Debt: dictates how much both mothers and fathers work, and it is a source of chronic stress.
The Long Arm of Technology: Modern technology has provided us with items such as cellular telephones, laptop computers, e-mail, and the Internet. Technology has increased our availability for work and the pace of work. Being "available" twenty-four hours a day has undobutedly increased our workloads and and the pace of our lives.
Vacations: We tend to work right up to the day we leave, then spend a frantic couple of hours packing and preparing the house for our departure. We may drive or fly for hours, and once there, we dash from activity to activity. We return home only to go back to work the next day.
I love this summation of stress:
"We are living in a new world, one that challenges our peace of mind and our inner grace. With its frenetic pace and constant state of flux, modern life often feels chaotic and unstable, and leaves us unsure of the ground we walk on... Many of us feel cut off from life's blessings, from our neighbors, from the wonders of nature, and from our sense of our own significance in the scheme of things. Modern life leaves us feeling spiritually starved."
Too Much, Too Many: i.e. too many people in a confined space, leading to lines, traffic, and pollution; too much stimulation in the way of advertisements, billboards, etc.
Driving: Mothers drive children to school, extracurricular activites, appointments, etc.
House: housing costs that dictate many other lifestyle choices such as type of job person takes, hours being worked, and commuting distance.
Paper: An average person handles about 300 sheets of paper per day. According to some estimates, we spend an average of eight months in our lives sorthing through junk mail alone.
Work: Americans work too much. We have recently surprassed the Japanese, and now have the longest work week of any industrialized nation.
Debt: dictates how much both mothers and fathers work, and it is a source of chronic stress.
The Long Arm of Technology: Modern technology has provided us with items such as cellular telephones, laptop computers, e-mail, and the Internet. Technology has increased our availability for work and the pace of work. Being "available" twenty-four hours a day has undobutedly increased our workloads and and the pace of our lives.
Vacations: We tend to work right up to the day we leave, then spend a frantic couple of hours packing and preparing the house for our departure. We may drive or fly for hours, and once there, we dash from activity to activity. We return home only to go back to work the next day.
I love this summation of stress:
"We are living in a new world, one that challenges our peace of mind and our inner grace. With its frenetic pace and constant state of flux, modern life often feels chaotic and unstable, and leaves us unsure of the ground we walk on... Many of us feel cut off from life's blessings, from our neighbors, from the wonders of nature, and from our sense of our own significance in the scheme of things. Modern life leaves us feeling spiritually starved."
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