Why Millennial Moms Are Stressed The Eff Out

 

I literally just rolled over from taking a quick, mid-afternoon cat nap as I write this, because the thought of and process of getting taxes together for my household and employees, updating our health insurance, scheduling social media, and writing 2 freelance articles has completely and utterly overwhelmed me today. I’m chowing down on some skittles (aka non-healthy food that makes me happy when I’m stressed), counting down the hours until I need to get B from the bus stop, wash dishes, make dinner, and then try to have some adult time with my husband. Sound familiar?

Truth: I’m stressed the eff out.

It all boils down to this: us Millennial Moms are expected by society to do it all.

I wrote a post about 2 years ago called “A Day In The Life of a Millennial Mom,” where I chronicled a similar feeling. I guess you could say that this has always been a topic of interest to me.

Being a Millennial puts us in this category of having a strong entrepreneurial spirit and a drive to be creative and form our own path, without a boss looking over our shoulders. I fit perfectly into this stereotypical mold and am proud of that. But, add the “mother” title to the mix, and everything is taken to a completely different level. Being a mom is tough all on it’s own, but whenever the expectation is to be the “perfect” mom, boss lady, quintessential wife, and many more hats that we wear during the day, well….it gets overwhelming.

I meet my fellow Millennial friends for lunch sometimes during the day and the lists of what we are all accomplishing in any given 7 day period is truly enough to make your head spin. We love the challenge of building our little empires and the support we get from our friends who are doing similar things. But loving what we do unfortunately doesn’t make the stress disappear.

There is also a huge perfection factor to take into consideration. We live in the age of social media, and it’s just not enough to tell our friends, family, and colleagues what we have been up to, we must show them – through beautiful pictures. We strive to create beautiful surroundings, modern interiors, and perfectly dressed families to capture life’s most important moments, then share. Yes, it comes with the territory, and I completely accept that (Hello, have you followed me on twitter yet?). It’s just a love/hate relationship that will always play a role in our lives. (I jump into this topic a bit more in my post Bridging The Gap Between Reality And The Internet: My Story)

Don’t get me wrong, I love the challenge and freedoms that being a Millennial mom brings me. I love it whenever we walk into Starbucks, and Branden has conversations with the barista about his mom being the boss. I hope that my ambitions have sparked a fire inside him to fuel his passions in life, but I also want him to understand how hard I work to achieve balance so that I can be his mom and also the boss.

I’m lucky that my husband never complains if I let the dishes pile up or I order take-out multiple nights in a row. After years of him not really understanding what I set out to do in this world or how I was going to make an income doing that, he finally gets it and supports my journey. This is one stress that I can cross off my list.

I think that it all comes full circle though, as we also push ourselves to do it all. We want to prove to everyone around us that yes, we can do it all without breaking a sweat – and that stress is put on us, by us.

Are you a Millennial mom? What stresses you the eff out?

Fashionably Yours,

Allison