S1E8: As A Mom, I Don’t Get To Clock Out

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Mom Boss Like a Boss Podcast, a podcast where we talk about mom life, entrepreneurship, and everything in between. I'm your host, Taylor B., a mom of four precious boys and an entrepreneur at heart. If you've been looking for a village of like-minded people, then I think you've found the right place. I look forward to talking with you, and I can't wait to see you inside. Hello, hello. Welcome back to the podcast. This episode is titled, As a Mom, I Don't Get to Clock Out. Let's dive into that. Well, as the title says, As a mom, I don't get to clock out. You probably can relate to what I'm talking about. As what feels like the default parent, I have to carry the weight of all the things regarding the kids. And then mentally, I'm also carrying all the things regarding the household. Since I'm here most of the time, well, not necessarily that I'm here most of the time, but I'm here more than my husband is. You know, like if we're running out of dish soap, typically I'm the one who's gonna notice that first. If we're running out of detergent, I'm typically gonna be the one to notice that first. Also, why? Because I'm the one who primarily does the laundry. But if something breaks, usually, I'm the one who notices it. And I have to remember to let my husband know. And or contact our leasing office, depending on what it is. You know, hypothetically. And if you've heard the term, because I think it's been talked about a lot more lately, if you've heard the term the mental load, that is what that is. It usually falls on the mom. I'm not saying there aren't dads out there who are also experiencing this, but I'm just saying the majority that I am aware of, it falls on the mom when it comes to doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, any appointment for the kids. Mom is scheduling it, mom is attending it, and mom is trying to relay all that information into what needs to be done or what the next steps are, all those things. And then probably trying to remember to update dad just so he's in the know. But nine times out of ten, he's not actually gonna be involved in whatever the next steps are, depending on what it is. When it comes to getting the kids ready for school, guess what? I'm doing that, but thankfully, my mom is a huge help. I am so, so blessed and so grateful to have her here. But again, I'm a part of getting the kids ready for school in the morning. I could work earlier while she was getting the kids ready for me. For me, I just that doesn't feel right. I know a couple of my kids can sometimes wake up with attitudes and be uncooperative, especially when I'm not here. So that's part of why I just decided to wait until all the kids have been put on the bus, and then I'm like, okay, now I'm gonna go work. But even when my husband is here, you know, early in the morning when the kids are getting ready for school, he's usually asleep because he's tired from working all the time. And that's understandable. That's understandable. It doesn't make it any less frustrating on those difficult mornings where I feel pulled in multiple directions, especially if I'm handling the kids by myself. So when you first get pregnant, as you probably know, your body grows and protects the baby, and it's taking from you, it's taking nutrients, it's taking all these things in order to nurture the baby. So, not even by choice, you're already giving so much of yourself before your baby's even out here in the world, right? Then, when the baby gets here, nine times out of ten, you're the one who's up all night with the baby. I know I am and have been since the baby was born. Don't get me wrong, my husband has gotten up a couple of times, but when he started his 4 a.m. shifts, he started going to bed at 6 p.m. So that way he could be rested enough to get up early in the morning. So for most of these nights, it's just been me and the baby and the dog. She's just kind of there, but you know, she's there for moral support, I guess. And a lot of times I feel anxious, very anxious, about asking him to take over. I feel anxious about trying to find time where it feels like there is none to do basic things. Something as simple as taking a shower or taking a nap because I need it and I'm exhausted and I'm struggling to stay awake, it feels like I have to ask permission as a mom. That's what it feels like. Because as the default parent, it feels like I'm holding everything together, and if I let go, then everything will fall apart. That's just how it feels, and that's how I would describe it. So I can work on something, so I can do something, so I can take a nap, so I can take a shower. Like, hey, can you get the kids so I can go take a shower? Or I really need a nap. Do you think you could get the kids for me? And it's an instinctual thing to ask. Whereas for him, he doesn't ask. He just, well, I'm really tired, so I'm gonna go lay down. He doesn't ask, he doesn't say, hey, you got the kids. Um I'm I think I'm gonna go lay down and take a nap. He doesn't ask, he just goes and does it. Maybe lets me know, hey, I'm gonna go lay down. Or hey, I'm gonna go take a shower real quick. Like he just does it. And it's such a foreign thing to me. Or if he's gonna go to the store, you know, he just I mean, he might mention it, like, I think I'm gonna go run to the store and get some things. He might mention it to me, but it's not in a, hey, do you mind, you know, taking the kids so I can go to the store? It's not that kind of vibe. It's like a passing conversation, passing, letting you know, I think I'm gonna go do this. Whereas for me, again, instinctually, I feel the need to be like, hey, do you think you can keep an eye on the kids while I run to the store real quick? And then I also feel the need to justify why I have to go and do the thing. You know, if I'm wanting to go take a nap, you know, I feel like I have to add in, I feel really tired. I didn't sleep very well last night. Or I don't know why I feel so tired, but I really need a nap. Do you mind taking the kids? Or I feel like I really need a shower. Do you mind taking the kids? Uh, I want to go to I need to go to the store to go get this thing and blah blah blah. Because da-da-da-da-da-da-da. I really need to da-da-da-da-da-da-da. I always and again, this is instinctually. This is not because of anything my husband has done or said to me, nothing like that. It's instinctual. I don't necessarily consciously feel like, oh, if I don't justify it or if I don't ask, he's not gonna do anything. I don't necessarily feel like that consciously, but subconsciously, I and instinctually I feel the need to ask, hey, you got the kids? Are you paying attention to the kids? Can you, you know, get them? Can you keep an eye on them while I go and do XYZ? And it's phrased as a question, not, hey, I'm about to go do this thing, I need you to get the kids. You know, and I feel like that's a vast difference between men and women as far as in the parental role. I don't know how many other women might feel like this. I've heard a lot of women say that they feel like this, but it's exhausting. You know, the mental load is so exhausting because it's not just mental. That mental takes a toll on you physically. If at the end of the day, if you feel like you haven't done much physically, but you're just like, oh my gosh, I'm so drained, I'm so out of it, that mental load probably kicked your tail throughout the day. That's most likely what that is. Because I've experienced that myself, where I'm like, I didn't even do much today, but I feel so exhausted. I had to fuss at the kids all day, and today was a really hard day with the kids not listening, and I was really stressed and I was really frustrated, or I had to do a lot of cooking and cleaning and back and forth and repetitive stuff because I don't know, I didn't have stuff prepared, or I was really trying to focus on this thing, but I couldn't because all my kids seem to need me all at the same time. The babies crying, the toddlers crying, the oldest ones asking, can I do this thing? Can I have this thing? Can I come sit with you? Can I can you help me with this? And then the second oldest is asking for things and then catching an attitude when you tell them to wait. Like, whoa! Whoa. That's it's a lot happening all at once. And I I know one of my friends has experienced this because she told me. My oldest has a tendency to ask me a lot if my husband's off work, and he calls him buddy. So he'll be like, Is mom is buddy off work today? And you know, when when my husband's not home, that's fine. But I've watched this child, my sweet just I have watched my sweet child walk past buddy to come ask me, mom, is buddy off tomorrow? And I got to a point where I just looked at him and I'm like, baby, you walked past the whole person that you asking about. You literally walked right past him to ask me if he gotta work. Baby, turn around and ask him. You you gotta do better with that. Like, stop asking me if he if he's standing right there. You standing right next to him and asking me if he's off work. Well, if you don't ask that man if he's off work, it be hilarious. But in the moment, I will not lie, a lot of times, if especially if I'm already overwhelmed, it feels like a lot, and I just be like, come on, bro. Sick days are not a thing, like I'm still getting over a cold. Like, I'm starting to realize that when I get sick, when I get a cold, I'm sick for a month. A month, four weeks, thirty days. Like the remnants of the of the cold are still here. You remember when I told y'all that you know I lost my voice, or my voice was really bad and it kept going in and out like a bad phone connection? Guess what? I'm still getting over that cold. Now it's a cough, maybe a s some slight congestion and all that, but it's still here. This has been going on for about a month now. I'm sick of it. But when it was just starting when I was really down bad, I had to get up while feeling like absolute garbage. I still had to get up and take care of those kids. I still had to get up and fix that food. And feed you know, and feed the kids. I still had to get up and feed the kids. I still had to get up and get them dressed to go to school. And then if one of them was too sick to go to school, I had to take care of him while he was at home while I'm not feeling good. There was maybe a couple of days where my husband was able to help. I think there was one day he was able to leave work a little early, like probably two or three hours early to because I said, hey, I'm really gonna need your help. I feel like absolute death and near death, and I need your help. I need you to come home. I mean, there were, like I said, there were a couple of days that I can recall that he helped a lot more than usual, and it it helped a lot. I won't even sit here and lie, but that's the thing about being a parent, being a mother. You don't get sick days, you don't get PTO, there is no clock out button, there is no nine to five. Them kids are your 25-8 shift all day and extra, all night and extra. Seven days a week plus one more day. That's what it feels like, and then especially for me as a business owner, trying to build a business and invest in it in the most realistic ways, of course. You know, you just you feel this pressure of you feel crazy for pursuing a dream and not focusing on your family. Y'all tell me why I have a live, although technically this isn't live, but this just happened. And uh and this is a great example of what I mean by as a mom, I don't get to clock out. So, my son school called me, and I immediately know, or at least I am pretty sure, who it's gonna be about, like which kid it's gonna be about, and what the problems and what the call is gonna be about. As soon as we get on the phone, yep, it's it's the kid I'm thinking about, and I'm told, oh, he's running through the hall, screaming at the top of his lungs, and he's refusing to go back to class. I'm like, oh my lord. Like, okay, he started out good, he was doing his work with the administrator, but then he started running away and screaming. And the administrator said when he screams, he can be heard both upstairs and downstairs. I was like, yup, he got a set of lungs on him. And the administrator said, Yeah, he sounded like he said he sound like when Whitney Houston was hitting them notes. Huh. And like, it's not funny, it's just this is more of like a chuckle from exhaustion. So I had to stop recording because I was in the middle of recording. I had to get in my car, I had to go up to that school, I had to talk to him, like, why is you running around the school screening your head off? Why aren't you in class? You know, all this other stuff, and I just I have to do it because dad's working. I don't have and you know that's part of why I do Uber and Lyft full time because things like this happen. Like I said, I never know if God forbid one of my kids is gonna get sick at school and I need to go pick them up. I've had that happen before. I don't know when my child is gonna be acting like he was not raised right, and I get those calls pretty frequently. So for anybody who's like, oh well, most managers or most jobs are pretty understanding. I unfortunately get those calls relatively frequently. So at some point it's gonna become a problem, even if it's not right away, it's gonna become a problem at some point. It's gonna become a conversation of, you know, hey, I know you're doing your best with your kids, you know, but you know, we still we need we might need to re-look at your schedule and all this other stuff. Like, that's why I keep my schedule so flexible because of things like this, but it also is detrimental to my earning potential, which affects our family, which affects our household. So it's just like millions of things piling on top of one another, and just non-stop overdrive, mental overdrive is what it feels like, and that's part of why I'm trying to build a business so I can hopefully work from home, create my own hours. If an emergency pops up, I can jump up and go handle that emergency instead of having to ask a supervisor if I can go home because this happened, and now I gotta wait for a response because I've had that happen where it's like, oh hey, I need to go do this thing, or this emergency came up, and then it's like, hold on, let me find you coverage, and then they're not coming back, and I have to keep harassing them, like, bro, I need to go. Like, what's going on? If you don't come back with an answer, I'm gonna have to walk out of here, and it's not gonna look good on me, but I need to go. You know what I'm saying? Like, if you've ever had a situation like that at a job where they keep talking about, oh, I'm trying to find you coverage, I'm trying to find you coverage, can you wait just a few more minutes? No, it's an emergency, I need to go. If I didn't have to go, I wouldn't have said it. And don't get me wrong, I understand from a business standpoint how difficult it is if you have an employee that you know suddenly has to leave. But like, come on, bro. Whether you the manager, whether you the owner, supervisor, you gotta figure it out. If my people need to leave, if they gotta go, if there's some emergency going on, you and you gotta go, I'm not waiting to find you no coverage. Especially if we got radios in that store, you know, or in that location, whatever. Or if we're especially for working remotely.

unknown 21:55

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Like, you go handle what you gotta handle. And then I will figure out the rest here. And I know that might be frustrating. I know that might be stressful for you know those in those leadership positions. But for me, again, I'm a mom. I don't get to clock out from that. I don't get to be like, oh, well, I clocked out from motherhood at five and dinner's at six, so you guys are gonna have to figure it out. I'm not doing anything else for you for the night. That's not how that works. That's not how that works. So it's just, oh. There's a lot, there's so much that goes into being a mom. And don't get me wrong, I feel blessed to have my precious babies. I always dreamed of having kids, of having a husband, of having a family, and I thank God that I have that. But in the same breath, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that it's easy. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that it's all sunshine and rainbows. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you, oh, this is the dream life. And I'm never stressed at all. This is great. You know, some days are difficult, but at the end of the day, I wouldn't have it any other way. I would have it other ways. I would, and I don't, and when I say that, I don't mean like, oh, I would have it to where I wouldn't have kids. No, I would have it to where I had more of a village, more support, more help, more resources, so that way I could show up as the best mom I can. That's how I would do it. If I could do my life any differently, that's all I want is more support, more help, and more resources. That's it. So that way I can show up and be a better mom. Because I can't be a good mom when I'm stressed, when I'm overwhelmed, when my mind is going 20,000 miles an hour. I can't. Because then, guess what? When you're stressed and overwhelmed and and and your mind is racing and all that, because you're thinking about all the things and you're trying to remember all the things and you're trying to do all the things, when you get overstimulated, which I'm pretty sure you heard that word, and I'm pretty sure you're aware of that. And if you're not, honestly, check Instagram. I would probably say check Instagram, check Instagram, Google search, whatever it is. When you're overstimulated, and your your spouse, your kids, somebody comes to you in that overstimulated state, and you're trying to you have to this is another mental load thing. You have to catch yourself, and I don't always catch myself, you gotta catch yourself so that way you don't explode at that person, so that way you don't snap at that person when they didn't deserve it. But when you're in that overstimulated, like fight or flight stressed out state, sometimes it's hard to catch yourself. So I think I'm gonna go ahead and wrap it up. Here I just wanted to share that you know, if you're not a mom yet, or if you don't know what the mental load looks like for a mom, which you probably do. It's just another thing to keep in mind to give mom parents, honestly, but to give moms grace. Give them grace, give us grace because you don't know what's going on behind the scenes, and especially if you got multiple kids. Maybe if you got the one and maybe your one is crazy is a little crazy. My sister, my sister, boy, she said she be having a time with my nephew. Say he just be getting into everything and said he just be just doing the most. Now, this is just me speaking from my experience because my kids are all hyperactive and crazy in one way or another. Not everybody's experience is the same, but I can imagine the overall consensus is um as moms, we don't get the clock out. So I'm gonna wrap it up there. And I just want to say thank you so much for showing up for me and listening to my ramblings. Thank you for listening to this podcast, and I'll catch you in the next one. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Mom Boss Like a Boss podcast. If you have any thoughts on the episode, please feel free to reach out to me on threads or Instagram. You can find me at the Creative Altruist, all one word, no spaces, underscores, or periods. It'll also be right there in the description. Until next time.