5 Reasons Why Moms Don’t Practice Self-Care Enough

This post will seek to address why moms don’t practice self-care enough.

We all know that self-care is super important, especially for moms!

Yep! Caring for ourselves through self-care is crucial to our children’s growth and development! (we create the best environment for them to thrive!)

Being responsible for our precious children means: We need to be in an excellent position to nurture our kids by prioritizing self-care.

Everyone has probably heard “Fill your cup first” or “Oxygen Mask” analogies that reinforce the importance of taking care of yourself first so that you can take care of others. However, Moms often confess that they still don’t do much self-care!

Here’s a fundamental problem to why moms don’t practice self-care enough…

When I started my Master’s Specialization in Clinical Behavioral Health, I remember the word “self-care” was something the school prioritized.

From our orientation, that was something that was hammered into our psyche.

At first, I thought it was a bit excessive, but looking back- I am so glad that this was hammered into us from day one. This is something we openly talked about with my cohort, professors, and clinical supervisors.

Because it was something that we talked about a lot, we were more inclined to lay a good foundation and practice it!

Then I began to ask myself, how comes as moms we don’t talk about this before having the kids?

We usually discover the importance of self-care once everything is falling apart with multitasking, errand runs, and late nights with kids with a fever!

That’s when we get burnt out, then it dawns on us, “Wow! Come to think of it; I haven’t done something for myself in months!”

Survey statistics

According to a survey conducted by HealthyWomen.Org, they found that women are putting their health last. Here is the information:

Not only are women putting themselves at the end of the list, some women aren’t getting around to it all. A shocking 78 percent said they often put off taking care of themselves or getting their health appointments made because they are so busy taking care of other family members’ health.

Although I could not find a comprehensive study on self-care, it shows that moms are likely to put themselves at the end of their to-do lists.

Dad’s and self-care

I have noticed that dads may not call it “self-care,” but they do a lot of “self-care.”

For example, my husband likes to play basketball, go to a comedy club, grill with his friends, have occasional soccer games, etc. He does this a lot, and it’s something that even the kids know, “Oh, dad’s gone to the gym” or “Dad has a soccer game.”

How comes self-care comes naturally to dads to the point that they don’t even label it self-care.

5 reasons why moms don’t practice self-care enough

Here are the reasons why mom’s don’t practice self-care enough!

1. Mom-Guilt

Yes! I said it- mom, guilt! (I feel guilty even saying that! 😂)

Ok, let’s take a deep breath….wooohhsaaaa.

As moms, we have this in-built pressure trap called mom-guilt. It makes one feel bad for taking some time away from the baby or a day off from cooking.

When I had my first child, I know mom-guilt was the worst for me. I would go on full zombie mode as I made fresh meals from scratch every day. Then with time, I realized that it’s not feasible; perhaps I can occasionally order in or even ask dad to throw something on the grill.

2. Feeling exhausted

Yes, I know you understand me when I say sometimes moms feels too tired to implement self-care.

If one has 30 minutes of free time, you may decide to sit on the couch and scroll on social media than utilize your 30 minutes for self-care. However, many self-care options don’t require much energy, and it’s a matter of identifying which one is best for you and fits into your lifestyle.

Also, you may feel too tired to do self-care because you don’t have a set routine to adhere to.

3. It’s too expensive!

Yep! This is something that mom sometimes says. Self-care is at times glamorized on social media as a genuinely unachievable luxury standard.

However, there are affordable and straightforward home-based self-care options you can implement!

4. There is no time!

It’s funny how moms can multitask and coordinate an impossible schedule but find it challenging to fit in a short time to practice self-care. It all boils down to prioritizing self-care. It doesn’t have to be 2 hours per day. As I said before, it’s a matter of identifying which one is best for you and fits into your lifestyle

5. Babysitting or child-care

Every household has a unique situation. However, if you know that this is a significant barrier to your self-care, it’s good to identify it so that you can proactively look for reliable support to partner with you! This reason can be very valid.

You may call around and ask a reliable family member to come at a specific time during the week so that you can do a quick self-care activity.

Importance of identifying barriers to self-care

It’s important to identify barriers to self-care because you can anticipate them and find solutions to your barriers! This will help one effectively create a self-care plan! Once you do this, you can increase your chances of success.

For example, if you identify your barrier to self-care is an appropriate time, you can brainstorm and pick a strategic time that may work. It takes planning, strategy and reflection. You may have to involve people to make it work!

So, in short, it’s ok to have a reason or barrier to self-care- if you can identify it- you can work towards addressing it!

From experience, I did create a self-management plan when in school, and my professor did make us spend an entire class brainstorming barriers to our plan. We asked ourselves lots of open-ended questions, and with that, we created plans that we were able to stick to!

and that’s it… why moms don’t practice self-care enough!

I will be providing more insight on what moms can do as far as self-care! I will also be showing you how to create an effective self-care plan in future posts!

See you in the next post!