A mum who felt "dread" at the thought of being with her kids all day shares how she healed from her "parental burnout".
Alicia Murray, 33, looks after her two boys - aged six months and three - all day before working in the evening when her husband, Eric, 33, arrives home.
She said she couldn't "justify" the cost of childcare but started to feel the impact of her long days.
Alicia said she would get tired to the point where a nap, good sleep or coffee wouldn't fix it and she'd feel "dread" in the morning.
She felt a lot of "guilt" and "shame" over her feelings but after recognising her parental burnout she found some ways to cope.
Alicia Murray, 33, looks after her two boys - aged six months and three - all day before working in the evening when her husband, Eric, 33, arrives home.
She said she couldn't "justify" the cost of childcare but started to feel the impact of her long days.
Alicia said she would get tired to the point where a nap, good sleep or coffee wouldn't fix it and she'd feel "dread" in the morning.
She felt a lot of "guilt" and "shame" over her feelings but after recognising her parental burnout she found some ways to cope.
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00:00 [ Music ]
00:29 How to overcome burnout as a parent.
00:32 I am so sorry this video took me so long to film.
00:34 I'm just sort of catching up on everything, so please bear with me.
00:37 First and foremost, and this is probably the hardest one, is to talk about it.
00:41 Oftentimes, there's a lot of shame and guilt in isolation in feeling parental burnout.
00:47 We're not complaining about our kids.
00:48 We're not complaining about being parents.
00:50 We're not regretting our decision, but we're just frankly saying we feel burnt out.
00:54 Yes, we have a group on Shmishbook.
00:57 The shmink is in our shmio.
01:00 We want to facilitate social support.
01:02 We want to have supports that we can lean on, talk to, and to just know that we are
01:06 not alone.
01:07 Number two, re-evaluate and re-appraise.
01:10 Take a look at things day to day and week to week that are sucking your energy, that
01:15 are causing you a lot of stress, any disdain, any anxiety, and take a look at a couple things
01:21 for each of these tasks.
01:22 Are they necessary?
01:23 Are they benefiting you or your family directly?
01:27 And can somebody else step in and do them?
01:29 Keep doing this on the tasks day to day, week to week.
01:33 Re-evaluate, re-appraise.
01:34 I know we hate this one because we want immediate results, but make small changes.
01:38 It took us months or years to get to this point of burnout, and it's not just going
01:43 to go away overnight.
01:45 Delegate one small task to your partner or a friend or a family member.
01:49 Look at the activities that your children or you or your family are doing on a daily
01:53 or weekly basis.
01:54 Is there any room to cut any of those back?
01:56 I'm going to get shit for this one, but you guys lower the bar.
02:00 Stop shooting yourself into burnout.
02:03 Sometimes we need to just strip it back to the basics, and that's okay.
02:06 Work on taking more micro breaks during the day rather than shooting for like a two, three,
02:11 four day weekend away from all of your responsibilities.
02:14 Micro breaks throughout the day are much more attainable and can definitely add up to some
02:18 stress relief over time.
02:20 Re-evaluate your values and make sure that you're living adjacent to those.
02:24 The drudgery of the same day over and over and over again can really get to us, and before
02:29 we know it, we realize how discontented we are with our life, and it's because we're
02:34 not living adjacent to our values.
02:36 We're just getting by.
02:37 Think about the question, "What is most important to you?" or "What moments are you the happiest?"
02:42 and work towards adding more of those into your days or weeks.
02:45 Be non-apologetic about it.
02:47 If what matters to you is sitting in your car and eating Chick-fil-A French fries, which
02:50 is definitely one of mine, then just fucking do it.
02:53 And finally, therapy.
02:55 Come on guys, you knew that I was going to say that one.
02:57 A lot of times, parental burnout can directly be linked to our own upbringing or our own
03:02 past traumas that are kind of starting to creep their way out when we have our own kids.