Mom’s Mental Health Over Everything: Why Prioritizing Your Mental Health As A Mom Is Not Optional
From the second your alarm goes off, your brain is already running triage. The baby needs to eat. The toddler's mid-meltdown over the wrong color cup. And somehow your second grader has just remembered (again) that there's math homework due today, and needs you to explain long division. (Math before 8am?! Illegal.) You're playing tetris on how to get everyone dressed, fed, and out the door in the next 45 minutes, ideally without leaving the house in yesterday's leggings. Eat breakfast? No chance. Take a shower? Totally reckless. And to be clear — this isn't a multiple-kids or absent partner problem. One baby, one toddler, or one second grader is plenty on their own to create this special kind of chaos no matter how equal your partnership.
The whole morning runs on an unspoken belief: if I stop to take care of myself, everything else falls apart. We're so entrenched in it that trying anything different — showering, stretching, whatever — feels less like self-care and more like risking all hell breaking lose before you’ve even stepped foot out of the house.
I’m going to ask you to suspend disbelief for a second. What if the truth is actually that taking care of your own wellbeing first makes you more resilient to the chaos that is motherhood?
Self-care has been packaged and sold to moms as bubble baths and face masks. And yeah, those things are nice. But let's be honest about what we actually dream about: getting dressed in peace. Making it to a therapy appointment (even virtually!). Eating a meal without a little hand tugging at your sleeve. That's what needs to be protected. Of course, you deserve fun, indulgent self-care, too. But what we're talking about here isn't indulgence. It's function. A regulated nervous system isn't a luxury. It's a real part of being able to show up for yourself (and your family) in a way you feel proud of.
You deserve to take care of yourself even if it has no direct benefit for anyone but you. But for a lot of moms, "take care of yourself because you matter" doesn't land in this season of life because we've been trained to believe, insidiously, that motherhood means self-sacrifice. So I encourage you to start with this framing instead: your wellbeing isn't separate from your family's wellbeing. It's part of it.
But before I go further, I want to say this clearly, because I don't want it to get lost in the rest of the post: you're not failing your kids on the days you're not okay. Not when you're touched out and short-tempered. Not when you're depressed and running on fumes. Not when you're anxious and can't get out of your own head. There is no version of this where a hard day, a hard season, or a mental health struggle makes you a bad mom. If anything, the opposite is closer to true — noticing you're struggling and reaching for support is one of the most protective things you can do for your kid.
In 1975, psychologist Edward Tronick ran what's now known as the Still Face Experiment. A parent was asked to interact normally with their baby, then suddenly go blank, not offering their child a reaction, let alone a smile. Within seconds, the baby noticed something was wrong and tried everything to get their parent back: reaching, smiling harder, and eventually melting down. The experiment became foundational to what we now understand about co-regulation: kids “borrow” their parent's nervous system to help build their own.
I want to be really specific about what this experiment does and doesn't tell us, because it's easy to hear "still face" and think "oh no, that's me on my bad days." It's not. What Tronick was studying was a total, sustained shutdown — a parent deliberately giving zero response for several minutes straight. That is not what it looks like to be exhausted, or flat, or depressed while still showing up. You can be having the hardest day of your life and still be a face your baby recognizes, a voice they know, a person who's there. Presence isn't the same thing as perfect regulation.
And, here's the part that actually matters most that gets left out of a lot of "regulate yourself for your kids" dialogue: what protects kids isn't the absence of hard moments. It's repair. Every parent loses their patience, goes quiet, gets overwhelmed, has a day (or a month) where they're not their best self. What kids need isn't a parent who never ruptures — that parent doesn't exist. They need a parent who comes back: who reconnects, who says "I'm sorry I snapped," who shows, over and over, that the relationship can survive a hard moment. That's the actual research. Rupture and repair, not flawless calm.
So if you're depressed, or anxious, or just deeply tired, this isn't a countdown clock on your kid's wellbeing. It's a sign to get support — for you, not as a penance for them.
So what does "not optional" actually mean in practice? It's first important to distinguish between crisis-mode care and daily maintenance.
Crisis mode can look like:
Feeling like you're drowning every day
Loss of interest and pleasure in hobbies you used to enjoy
Feeling teary, overwhelmed, or fearful of the future
Feeling hopeless, like things will "always be this way"
If any of this sounds familiar, please talk to a trusted person and seek care — you don't have to sort this out alone, you don't have to wait until it gets worse, and needing support does not make you a bad mom. And if you're experiencing fear of your own thoughts, or urges to harm yourself or others, please take that seriously and reach out to someone immediately. A good, accessible starting place is Postpartum Support International's list of helplines.
If you're not in immediate crisis but know you need more support, it's time to put together a treatment team for therapy, medication, or both. You can find providers trained in perinatal mental health here. If you're in Ohio or Texas, you're also welcome to reach out to me here for a consultation.
On the other hand, maintenance refers to the daily practices that support your wellbeing once you're in a stable place. This isn't about 10-step wellness routines you see on the internet from influencers who are 20 and childfree. Instead, these are anchors throughout your day that meet you where you actually are.
A few concrete, low-lift examples of daily maintenance:
Daily movement — don't overthink it. This can be your favorite type of exercise, or a 10-minute walk.
Protecting sleep — this looks different depending on your stage of parenting. In the newborn stage, it might mean asking your partner to take the baby in the morning so you can sleep in, napping when you can, or just going to bed early. In later stages, an early bedtime or having your partner handle the early wake-up can do the trick. You're not getting your nine hours back — but small wins are the name of the game here.
Getting dressed every day — this might not be your most stylish era, but real clothes, brushed teeth, and a washed face go a long way.
Connecting with an adult — conversations with your kids are cute, but sometimes you just need to talk to a grown-up. Checking in with a friend or your partner at least once a day is a solid way to feel like yourself again.
No matter how simple some of these things may seem, they can still feel nearly impossible to do in practice. Besides having to get over the cultural scripts about martyrdom and what makes a "good mom," there are also the logistical realities around time, money, childcare, and partner buy-in, not to mention a culture that offers new parents very little support to begin with. So if you're struggling to take care of yourself, it's not a character flaw. It's a systems problem, too.
Your wellbeing genuinely matters for your family to flourish long term. But if you're struggling right now — today, this week, this whole season — you are not "ruining" or "failing" your children. Our babies are resilient, and the relationship can hold more than we think. Your job right now isn't to be everything to everyone, or to be regulated around the clock, or to never have a bad day. It's to get the support you need to feel like yourself again. Because yes, it matters for your family. But it matters more because you matter, full stop, outside of every role you play.
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