Busy Moms: Slow Down and Feel the Joy

Balancing Motherhood

Not long ago, I met a wonderful 92-year-old woman. She was married during the Depression and lost her husband during World War II when he stepped on a land mine. Though she was a young widow with four small children, she picked up the pieces of her shattered dreams and went on to live a rich, interesting life. When I asked how she handled the stress of her earlier years, she seemed puzzled. Instead, she talked about grief, hard work, and the compassionate people who helped her out. "I wouldn't say I've had a stressful life," she told me.

I was speechless. My friends and I complain endlessly about feeling stressed out 24/7. We have terrific children, comfortable homes, and nice husbands -- the worst thing that happened to us last year is that the Red Sox didn't survive the playoffs. We're healthy. Maybe none of us is rich, but we never have to say no to Starbucks either. I couldn't help but wonder: Is raising a family today really more stressful than it's ever been? Or are we just a generation of whiners?

I decided to check in with some experts, and it turns out the answer to both those questions is ... yeah, sort of. "For the average middle-class American family, it can be more stressful to raise kids now," says Kirby Deater-Deckard, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, in Blacksburg. In large part, that's because we all have more choices in our lives, each one exponentially increasing the need to make decisions.

My 92-year-old friend didn't have to struggle with work choices, at least not in quite the same way we do. Today, working outside the home means relying on a caregiver, or more likely, multiple caregivers, says Dr. Deater-Deckard. Surrendering control to that day-care clock creates constant pressure, as women fight rush-hour traffic to make a 6 p.m. pickup.

Parents who decide to stay at home grapple with a different set of headaches. "We have lots of financial stress because I'm not working," says Heidi Davis, a mother of four boys from Livonia, New York. "My husband and I are constantly discussing money. Instead of focusing on what we don't have, I try to remind myself that I made this choice and that our kids are benefiting from it. But it's a constant struggle."

And then there are the lunatics like me who try to do it all. I remember writing a work memo during a preschool performance of Peter Pan and managing to miss practically every moment my son was on stage. Maybe he could fly, but my heart was sinking, and the memo had to be completely redone anyway. Some days, I feel like I'm failing at motherhood -- and at my job.