What does your day look like? If you’re like me, it is filled to the brim with things to do, people to feed and care for, and a myriad of assorted tasks that spontaneously appear throughout the day. I wake up, hit the ground running, and fall into bed at night, exhausted from the day’s work.
Now, I’m going to ask you a much more difficult question…
What does your mothering look like?
While motherhood is most definitely an exhausting job (and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!), it shouldn’t be utterly draining. Being tired comes from a place of leading a full life. The feeling of being drained comes from finding yourself running on empty far too long and far too often.
When I wrote my now infamous post on the Me Time Myth, I did not realize how important my opening paragraph actually was to the whole Me Time equation…
“I once heard a talk show host give a very compelling argument for why moms need time away. He said mothers give and give to the point of empty. They must refuel themselves so they can continue to give.”
~The Me Time Myth
We give until we are empty. And then, we think the only way to remedy that is to get away and refuel. But, that’s a cycle you can’t break free of. You will find yourself endlessly EMPTY because you have no idea how to refresh and refuel within your own home among your own people.
And your mothering will suffer.
A mom who is always drained, always running ragged, always fed up and tapped out will never be the mother she truly wants to be. And frankly, this isn’t the kind of mother I want my children to remember, nor the kind of parent I want them to become.
How to Avoid Burnout as a Mom
Charlotte Mason once wrote, “If mothers could learn to do for themselves, what they do for their children . . . we would have happier households.”
Karen Andreola coined the term “Mother Culture” to describe this feeding of a mother’s soul, mind, and body in order to create a rich environment that never brings her to a point of emptiness. (or avoids it as much as humanly possible because I am well aware that “never” is pretty tough to come by)
Related video: What to do when mama is burned out. (just in case you are already there)
You might be wondering what in the world this Mother Culture actually is, and how in the world you could ever manage to fit one more thing into your day. But, trust me, this isn’t nearly as complicated as it sounds, and it is such a lifesaver for the busy, overwhelmed mom.
How do I start building Mother Culture?
1. Find whitespace in your day. As I said in the beginning, my day is filled to the brim. I’m sure your day is too, but I’m guessing some of those moments you filled yourself (I know I did!). So, the first thing you have to do is start looking for whitespace or margin in your day. Here are some ideas to help you:
Put your homeschool on autopilot – outsource and systemize certain subjects so you don’t have to do ALL of the teaching.
Pare down your list of Must-Do’s – You cannot do it all, and you will not find balance every single day, so keep your day simple and stop piling extras into your life that are not truly necessities.
Put systems in place – Every stressor, every monotonous task, every daily grind on your list needs a system. Not only does this create consistency, it creates routine that can be done without a lot of brain power. When you don’t have to spend time thinking about something, you automatically create more margin your day!
To learn more about putting systems in place that specifically help the homeschool mom, get my book, Home Management for the Homeschool Mom!
2. Don’t fill the whitespace. Once you find whitespace in your day, keep it white! You have to consciously teach yourself to NOT fill it with projects, to-do’s, cleaning, email, etc. They may be “good things,” but the quickest way to burn out is to fill your day with LOADS of good things. Learn to just be.
3. Slowly, bring a tiny bit of mother culture into your whitespace. I recommend a book. No, not a book on homeschooling or decluttering or cooking. A book that has nothing to do with self-help, and preferably fiction. Read for a few minutes. Yes, a few minutes. As Brandy Vencel says, Mother Culture doesn’t have to take a lot of time. Allow yourself to soak in a paragraph or two, and then put a bookmark in your place and set the book down where you can find it again.
4. Learn to build mother culture into your every-day. I want you to learn to keep margin in your day, so I don’t want your whitespace to be all mother culture. Thankfully, the very essence of mother culture does not require you to do things apart from your family and children in order to enrich your life. You truly can build mother culture into your every day life.
For instance, I started my Mother Culture journey by sitting down to do my kids’ Chalk Art lessons with them. I had spent years facilitating and mediating art in our home. It never occurred to me to actually do it WITH them! The Chalk Art lessons from You ARE an Artist are the perfect place to start because chalk is VERY forgiving, and the lessons are simple enough that they don’t require you to expend a lot of energy helping your kids with the lesson. Our family has a Clubhouse subscription, but you might want to start with something like the History lessons or the seasonal lessons. (This Fall video series is a favorite of mine!)
Here’s my Harvest Moon painting from these lessons…it’s a start!
Learn more about You ARE an Artist lessons for you and your kids!
If you are like me and need a list of ideas to get you thinking more about how to incorporate Mother Culture into your day, here you go…
Examples of Mother Culture Activities
Read a book
Listen to music
Dance
Sing or play an instrument
Go on a nature walk
Study a painting
Try different art mediums & styles
Study a flower
Grow something
Go stargazing
Get a subscription to a “pretty” magazine – Country Sampler, Victoria, Tea Time, The Magnolia Journal
Go outside and use your sense to just observe
Put pretty scripture cards up around your house
Get a “coloring” Bible – this is the one I have
Ultimately, the best way to implement a life of Mother Culture is to do projects/art/life alongside your children, and then pursue a few interests of your own outside of school hours – just as you would encourage your children to do. You are setting an example of what a rich ADULT life looks like. We are aesthetic creatures made by an aesthetic God. Think on these things and learn to live in abundance!
Get a FREE Mother Culture Planner from Everyday Graces to help you in your journey!
CLICK HERE TO START PLANNING!
Andrea says
Excellent post, timely and needed. Just got over major illness going through the kids, exhausted. Thank you for magazine suggestions, looking in to Country Sampler. Loved the comment to read something, not related to homeschooling or decluttering 🙂 You are so smart! How did you know we might do that???
Amy says
Ha! Because *I* would do that! 😉
Sophie says
Love this! It’s so true. We need to fill our soul too.
Antoinette says
Such an inspiring post! What every mother should read and then do!
Lisa says
Yes! Such an important topic, and the concept that you can recharge in your own home with your kids around is so foreign to what modern culture teaches. I love taking one or two of my kids on a walk, or playing a fun game with the family.
And putting my phone down – that thing is so useful when I need it, but it’s not refreshing or recharging to be glued to it.
Amy says
Amen!
Tara Beechy says
HI Amy,
This article brought hope and encouragement to my soul. I am coming to the end of a very long season of over-commitment and caring for a chronically sick child. I am exhausted and I have been running on empty for far too long. There have been so many days when I know I have nothing to give, yet life as a homeschooling mama doesn’t stop.
I have read about Mother Culture before and have tried implementing it from time to time, but it’s always the first thing I let go when life gets crazy. I am recommitting myself this week to making room in my life for Mother Culture. Firstly, to be filled consistently in my quiet time with God, and secondly to do one small thing each day that will allow me to continue learning and growing as a person. Thank you for this excellent article!!
I shared it with our readers on our facebook page for their encouragement as well.
Tara (Sisters with a System)
Amy says
Sounds wonderful! It is so easy to tell ourselves this is just a season and when it is over, we’ll do such and such, but if that’s how we live our lives, we miss a huge chunk of time we could have been LIVING in! Thank you so much for sharing!
Tanya Kerkhoff says
So true Amy. I went through this burnt out felling after having 3 children in 2 1/2 years. My oldest was 2 1/2, I had a 15 month old and a baby. The oldest 2 were not easy. What helped me was to take as many decisions as possible out of my day… so every day of the week I had a meal I would make and it was the same every week. So like Monday I would do a carrot mash, Tuesday steak/roast, Wednesday chicken, Thursday soup, Friday macaroni, Saturday was easy day meal, sometimes leftovers but usually hamburgers. The same for my house work, I scheduled my house work…and wherever I could simplify I did. Instead of using table clothes because that would create extra laundry I put a plastic table cloth on and all I had to do was wipe it down. Toys got pared down to the bare minimum… if I couldn’t clean it up in 15 minutes there was just to much there. Laundry also got pared down… we reused towels for a whole week. Not only did it save on laundry, but it also saved in other ways. I was blessed to have my kids all take naps for a very long time (5 years). I used those 2 hours after lunch just to get some quiet time for myself. Sometimes it meant taking a nap, but most often it was time for me to have some time to read. It was time I needed to recharge and be able to get through supper hour in a decent space, because if Mom is tired she can’t handle crabby, tired kids. I would also do groceries in the evening (we live 5 minutes away for the grocery store). Now that my kids are older I have been able to pull out of being overwhelmed all the time, but a lot of the things I did then I still implement today.
Congratulations with Mercy’s birthday! My little one is turning 2 on Saturday 🙂
Amy says
Wonderful advice and ideas, Tanya! Thank you so much for sharing!
Marta says
This is so great.
A few years back, I gave into my guilty pleasure of taking my lunch into the living room and reading while the kids ate in the kitchen. I felt kind of bad, but at noon, the intense hands-on portion of schooling (the older 4) while keeping laundry cycling, the preschooler happy, and the toddler out of the toilet/oven/cupboards etc has all just ended and I’m TIRED! I don’t want to talk or scold or read aloud something edifying while they eat. I just want to sit down and eat my sandwich and read. Like I said I felt terrible, until I noticed that every lunch now, everyone HAS to grab a book- even the 3 year old and the toddler! They all quietly eat lunch and read because, I guess that’s our thing now. It’s a nice thing! And it came out of modelling how to recharge your batteries in a positive way.
Amy says
I will often take my lunch somewhere else because you are right, after a full-on morning, I need a bit of quiet, so I can jump into the afternoon. We feel guilty about the craziest things, don’t we?!
Sarah says
Just came across your blog. I recently had my 5th 2 11 weeks ago. My older is 12 and we homeschool. My question is, have you ever experienced any postpartum mental issues? I always loved having a big family and the challenge. I always thought that God would lead us to how many children we would have. But this last one left me with severe anxiety and panic issue to the point where I can’t be alone some days. Do you have any ideas on how to regain my Mommy strength and confidence?
Amy says
Yes, I dealt with this after my 9th was born – https://raisingarrows.net/postpartum-anxiety-how-i-am-coping/ – I found the biggest component was my nutrition and a severe lack of B12 in my system. Once I started taking B, I began to feel much better.