We Don’t Call It Mom Burnout. We Call It Motherhood.
Today I want to talk about maternal mental health, mom burnout… and all of that language.
And how it’s still not widely accepted or even properly discussed in society.
When I tell people I work as a therapist with mom burnout, helping moms who feel overwhelmed and overstimulated, the response is usually something like: “Oh wow, that’s amazing. I love that you’re working with postpartum moms.”
And I get it. That’s where people’s minds go.
But that’s not actually the demographic I specialize in.
Postpartum gets recognized. “Motherhood” just gets… normalized.
When people hear “therapy for moms,” they often assume I mean postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, or birth trauma.
And if someone comes to me wanting support specifically for postpartum depression/anxiety or birth trauma, I refer them to trusted professionals who specialize in that. Because I don’t.
What I do specialize in is the moms who are in the after.
The moms with kids who are 3, 8, 12, 17… and even older. The moms who are just… in motherhood.
Not the perinatal space (fertility, pregnancy, immediate postpartum). I’m working in the stage that society just calls motherhood.
And here’s the part that makes me want to flip a table:
We’ve normalized that motherhood is “just” exhausting. “Just” hard. “Just” something you’re supposed to suffer through.
We see it everywhere: Instagram jokes, TV shows, movies, YouTube videos.
We don’t call it mom burnout.
We call it motherhood.
And that is really fucking sad.
Because when all that difficulty gets wrapped up into the term “motherhood,” what we’re really saying is:
Of course you’re exhausted and overstimulated.
That’s the deal.
And if you can’t handle it, that’s a you problem.
That’s so invalidating!
The real issue: we don’t study maternal mental health past postpartum
Here’s where things get tricky: we don’t put enough research (or funding, or attention) into maternal mental health past the postpartum stage.
And yes, thank God we have tons of research and language for postpartum! I struggled with postpartum depression and anxiety myself, so I genuinely love that we take that seriously.
But the problem is… there’s not enough credible, widely known information about the “after.”
Postpartum has diagnoses, research, and it’s in our cultural lexicon.
But once you’re past that stage? It’s like the struggle becomes invisible.
And it became blaringly obvious to me while I was doing research for my upcoming book, Slow Motherhood.
When I tried to find research for my book… it was almost all postpartum
In the first chapter, I wanted a section that included research findings about motherhood and maternal mental health.
And it was so hard to find research about maternal mental health in general for moms.
Most of what I found was postpartum, perinatal, fertility, birth, pregnancy… even menopause (which also matters).
But when it came to general motherhood? The “after”?
If it showed up in research at all, it was usually framed as parental burnout as a whole, which is important, yes.
But we also know the experience of parenthood often differs depending on whether you’re a mom or a dad, just because of how society has shaped roles, expectations, and the mental load.
So finding research specifically about moms, outside of postpartum, was difficult.
Did I find some? Yes. And I want to share it with you because… it matters.
What 2025 data is showing (and it’s a lot)
Canada: “Concerned” and “burnt out” isn’t a small group; it’s most
In the 2025 Women’s Mental Health Report led by GreenShield in partnership with Mental Health Research Canada, one thing that really hit me was this:
Two in three Canadian mothers are concerned about their mental health
Half of Canadian mothers frequently or always feel burnt out
Let that sit in.
Two in three.
Half.
That’s not “a few moms who can’t cope.”
That’s a massive portion of mothers quietly trying to function while feeling like they’re failing.
U.S.: declining maternal mental health across socioeconomic backgrounds
A 2025 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that mothers of children aged 0–17 experienced declines in self-reported mental health between 2016 and 2023, and those declines showed up across socioeconomic subgroups.
So if your brain tries to tell you, “It’s just me. Everyone else is handling this better,” no.
This is bigger than you.
“Why don’t moms just get support?” (Because barriers are real.)
These kinds of studies also point to why so many moms don’t seek support:
shame and judgment
lack of understanding of maternal mental health
not believing you “deserve” help
the belief that you just need to “cope better”
And then there’s the glaring one:
There aren’t enough fucking supports.
Not enough specialized supports for moms; in the public sector, in the private sector, in general. It’s a real lack.
And because we don’t have enough language and visibility around this, so many moms end up feeling alone.
A lot of the moms I work with tell me that when they read my therapy website or my Psychology Today profile, it’s the first time they’ve ever seen what they’re going through written on a page.
Like: “Oh… it’s not just me.”
And that’s exactly why naming this matters.
It’s not equal for everyone: risk factors and extra layers
This isn’t a situation where everyone has the exact same experience.
There are disparities, real ones.
Some moms are carrying additional layers like:
financial strain
parenting alone (single parenthood)
caregiving for aging parents
discrimination or racism
being new to Canada/the U.S. with no family support nearby
being part of the LGBTQ+ community and not being properly supported by systems meant to help
navigating disability (your own or your child’s)
new diagnoses (ADHD comes up a lot)
the endless appointments, advocacy, paperwork, and fighting with school systems
lack of flexible work
childcare that’s hard to find, or hard to trust
a partner who isn’t physically present (working away, etc.), so you’re carrying the load alone
And when you stack all of that on top of the invisible mental load of motherhood?
Yeah. Of course you’re tired.
Of course your nervous system is fried.
Why I’m ranting (and why I care so much)
You might hear it in my writing: I get frustrated about this. I’m foaming at the mouth a little bit trying to get it all out.
Part of why it’s coming up so strongly right now is because I’m actively editing chapter one of my book.
That chapter talks a lot about emotional labour, invisible fatigue, always being “on,” the invisible tabs, the invisible load, all of it.
And I wanted stats in there because if we don’t have words for something, we shame ourselves.
The more language we have, the more we can understand what’s happening, and stop turning it into a personal failure.
Naming the invisible load isn’t to overwhelm you. It’s to remove shame.
This is the core of it.
The point of naming the invisible load isn’t to make you feel worse.
It’s to remove shame.
Because shame keeps you trapped in this loop:
“I just need to try harder.”
“I should be able to handle this.”
“If I were better, I wouldn’t feel like this.”
But when you name it, you stop blaming yourself for buckling under it.
When you stop treating your exhaustion like a personal defect, you stop trying to fix yourself with more effort, more discipline, more pushing through.
You start getting honest about what you’re carrying.
What’s been normalized.
What’s been made invisible.
And what your body has been trying to communicate this whole time.
You start seeing the truth:
The expectations placed on mothers are unrealistic.
And no, “You’ll find yourself again when your kid goes to school” is not the plan.
That’s not what I want for you.
A small reflection (and an invitation)
If any part of this hit you in the chest, I’d love for you to pause and reflect on one question:
What have you been treating like a personal weakness… that might actually be an invisible load you were never meant to carry alone?
If you want to share, tell me what resonated, either in the comments or wherever you like to have these conversations. I really do want more dialogue and community around this, because you’re not alone in it. And you shouldn’t have to feel like you are.
Sources Mentioned
GreenShield × Mental Health Research Canada (MHRC), 2025 Women’s Mental Health Report
Daw JR et al., Trends and Disparities in Maternal Self-Reported Mental and Physical Health in the US, JAMA Internal Medicine (2025)