The Real Reason Moms Feel Like They Are Drowning

Most moms know something is wrong before they know what to call it. The days feel heavy. The nights are short. The to-do list never ends. And somehow, even in a room full of people, there is a specific kind of loneliness that only a mother can recognize.

That is where this episode of The Vitality Journey Podcast begins. Dave Rodriguez and Dimitri Snowden welcome Lucy King and Sam Romer, co-hosts of the podcast “We’ll Sleep When We’re Dead,” to explore one of the most under-addressed dimensions of human vitality: mental and emotional health. And more specifically, the unique weight that mothers carry.

The Story That Set the Stage

Before the guests enter the conversation, Dave opens with something personal. For decades, he believed his father had a heart attack during Dave’s high school years. It was only after his father died that he found out the truth: it was a panic attack. His father had struggled with mental illness and emotional health issues his entire adult life, and never said a word about it.

Because that is not what men did.

That Silence Cost Them a Relationship They Could Have Had.

One billion people worldwide are currently living with a mental health condition. One in five adults has been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. And only 14% of adults received any kind of counseling in the past year. The struggle is everywhere. The support is not. And as Brene Brown put it to a room full of executives: we are not okay.

Why “Overwhelmed” Is Not a Specific Enough Answer

One of the most useful frameworks in this episode comes from a guest Lucy and Sam featured on their own podcast: Mel Goodman, founder of WorkMom. Goodman proposed that what people vaguely call “the mental load” is actually four distinct and separable loads. Lucy explains them clearly, and the distinction matters because you cannot address the right thing if you cannot name it.

1. The Logistical Load This is the operational infrastructure of family life, and it lives almost entirely in a mom’s head. Booking doctor appointments three months out, tracking school pickups, planning spring break travel, signing kids up for sports. It is the endless administrative task list that never has an end date.
2. The Emotional Load This is the real-time labor of navigating other people’s emotional states. As Lucy describes it: a child throwing a tantrum about wearing a school uniform in the morning. It is not the end of the world, but dealing with that emotional negotiation when you are already on a time crunch, with a full day ahead, costs something. Every time.
3. The Mental Load Not the items on the list, but the persistent awareness that the list exists. As Lucy puts it: “There is never a time of silence in the head.” Even on the Peloton bike, you are scheduling dentist appointments in your mind. Even during dinner, you are tracking what needs to happen by 7 a.m. tomorrow.
4. The Identity Load Perhaps the most quietly devastating of the four. This is the recurring question: Was it all worth it? Was the way I spent my time aligned with my purpose? It shows up in working moms and stay-at-home moms alike, wearing different clothes but asking the same thing.

“Whether you are a working mom or a stay-at-home mom, the question can come up quite frequently of, what is it all for? Was it all worth it? Was the way I spent my time aligned with my purpose?” — Lucy King

Dave connects this directly to a theme that runs throughout The Vitality Journey Podcast: when identity is in crisis, when the role you are living does not feel connected to who you actually are, that is not just an emotional problem. It is a vitality problem. It is the exact issue that logotherapist Dr. Daniel Franz, featured in the following episode, addresses clinically: a crisis of meaning.

Common Myths Worth Addressing

Myth 1: “Asking for help is selfish.” Sam went to Japan for 10 days when her daughter was nine months old. She pumped five times a day in Japan. Some people were shocked. She was not. Because she knew: if I do not start giving myself time now, it will only get harder to reclaim. Sustained self-sacrifice without recovery does not create better moms. It creates depleted ones.

Myth 2: “Your husband should just know what you need.” Both Lucy and Sam came to the same conclusion through years of hosting their podcast and hearing from hundreds of moms: every woman wants something different. Nobody can guess correctly. The answer is asking, specifically and consistently. Not once. As needs change with each season.

Myth 3: “You just need a big community.” Sam’s recommendation is consistently two or three honest friends. Not a large network. Not a curated online group. Two or three people she can voice note at 5 a.m. and say: I’m already annoyed at the day. Please tell me you go through this too. Depth over breadth. Always.

What Actually Helps: Five Practical Steps

1. Give yourself time that is not for anyone else. A workout, a cup of coffee before the kids wake up, 30 minutes alone. This is not optional self-care. It is maintenance. You cannot give from a depleted reserve.
2. Find two or three mom friends you can be completely honest with. Not acquaintances. Real people who are in it with you, who you can reach out to at 5 a.m. without explanation.
3. Use the total responsibility transfer. Sam’s example: she is completely unavailable for her daughter’s Saturday morning swim class. Her husband owns it entirely: the bag, the snacks, the schedule, the logistics. If it goes wrong, it goes wrong. She is not the backup system. This is not about relinquishing responsibility. It is about genuinely distributing it.
4. Stop trying to feel heard by the wrong person. This is not a criticism of partners. It is an acknowledgment that some of what you are carrying requires someone who has walked the same path. Seek that out deliberately.
5. Ask specifically for what you need. It sounds too simple to be the answer. It is the answer.

The Data That Should Reorder Your Priorities

By the end of the conversation, Dave brings it back to something foundational. The Harvard longest longitudinal study of human behavior found that the number one source of happiness is relationships. Not success, not fitness, not achievement. Relationships.

More specifically: the state of your relationships at age 50 is the greatest predictor of your happiness in your 70s and 80s.

Relational health, the dimension that keeps surfacing in episode after episode of The Vitality Journey Podcast, is not a soft topic. It is the highest-leverage investment of your life. For moms especially, the two or three honest relationships Sam and Lucy describe are not just helpful. According to the data, they are among the most important things you will ever build.

Your Next Step

Watch the full Episode 7 of The Vitality Journey Podcast: [YouTube link]

If you are ready to go deeper and take an honest look at all six dimensions of your vitality, explore The Calling Quilt™ coaching at destiny-works.com/the-calling-quilt

You are not supposed to carry this alone.

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Full Transcript

Dave: You have an inner world. It’s the part of you that no one can see, but everyone certainly can experience. It’s the inner world of your emotions, your mental health, your spiritual journey, and your self-worth. How do you manage this inner world of emotions? That’s where we’re going to turn our attention on this episode. Welcome back to The Vitality Journey Podcast.

Dave: One of my core memories is not a good one. I was sitting in high school, in choir, and all of a sudden my teacher gets up and goes over to the door. Somebody had knocked. When she opened it, it was my mother. And you know that cannot be good when your parent shows up at school. And it wasn’t good, because she called me out and said: we had to take your dad to the hospital. He’s having a heart attack.

Dave: I had no emotion. I didn’t know what to do with that. She just wanted to tell me, and I went back to class like, oh wow. No big deal. Just carry on with your day. Well, here’s what we discovered for decades. I thought my dad had a heart attack. It was only seven or eight years ago, actually after he died, that I found out he didn’t have a heart attack. He had a panic attack. And I found out that for decades, my dad had a mental illness and emotional health issues. But back in the day, you don’t talk about that. Especially men. Especially men don’t talk about it. But it always fascinated me. I wonder: what if I would have known that about my dad? Would it have changed my relationship with him, had he been forthcoming about his emotional health? So anyway, that’s a core memory to talk about emotional health, which is our focus for this episode of The Vitality Journey Podcast.

Dave: Stats are savage, as they always are. One billion people worldwide are living with some sort of mental health condition: anxiety, depression. One in five adults has been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. 19 to 21% of adults have had depression in the past two weeks. Here’s the really interesting part: only 14% of adults have received any kind of therapy or counseling with their emotional health in the past year. The numbers are huge, but nobody’s getting help. And Dimitri, going back to your previous life as a pastor, do these stats line up?

Dimitri: 45 years of seeing people, the stats do line up. To call somebody having an anxiety panic attack or deep-level depression, that’s one end of the spectrum. But just about everybody struggles with emotional health in one way, shape, or form.

Dave: And you think this is tangible and real, not something manufactured?

Dimitri: No, I think it’s a real thing. What did Brene Brown say just last year to a group of executives? She said: we’re not okay. People are not okay. So that’s the topic we’re going to talk about. It doesn’t sound like a happy topic, but we’ll try to make it a happy one.

Dave: We’re grateful to be joined by two women who are committed to helping moms process life at an emotional level, and at all the levels, through their podcast. Their podcast is called “We’ll Sleep When We’re Dead.” Lucy King is a working mom and Sam Romer is a stay-at-home mom. These two process life together through humor, storytelling, and interviews with some very cool guests. Now that they’re our guests on The Vitality Journey Podcast, welcome Sam and Lucy.

Sam/Lucy: Thank you. So good to be here.

Dave: I should add, full disclosure, that Lucy is my daughter. Spoiler alert. So Lucy and Sam, out of curiosity: what the heck were you thinking when you launched the podcast?

Sam: I’m going to answer this. I am the stay-at-home mom. I decided to become a stay-at-home mom when I got pregnant with my oldest daughter seven years ago. I’ve known Lucy since we were 19, and she’s evolved into this almost sister-like friend. However, she and I have one huge difference: she is a working mom and I’m a stay-at-home mom. One day I sent her a social media post from a woman who was barely figuring out how to get her life going, asking moms: how are you doing it? Because she deeply cared about her career. I immediately sent it to Lucy and she had some amazing comment, basically like, you should be scared, or it’s really hard. And I threw Lucy a bone: let’s start a podcast. Because I find the chatter so loud right now. It’s not working mom versus stay-at-home mom. It’s more just the feeling that the grass is always greener. And Lucy and I, because we’ve known each other so long and she’s like a best friend slash sister, we have no limits on how we talk about being a mom. A lot of times it’s humorous and a lot of times it’s hard. I just felt like: we talk once a week, why not throw this out there and share with other moms? She said yes. So we started this podcast. We joke that it’s like a mom chat, but then we do get serious. Motherhood, it’s like we’re all doing the same thing, yet every journey is so wildly different.

Lucy: Yeah. And the contrast between the two of us is within itself the story. I think that’s what’s been so interesting about this podcast, given the response we’ve gotten: everyone can see themselves and their experiences at least somewhat in one of our stories. We’ve gotten equal parts response from working moms and stay-at-home moms who are not only like, it’s great to know that someone else is going through this too, but also are so curious about how the other one does it.

Dave: What are some of the things you’ve learned since you’ve done this podcast?

Lucy: My biggest takeaway has been how much moms want to feel seen, heard, or understood. The most typical comments I get, someone very randomly came up to me at a trade show in the last two weeks who was like, I have been listening to your podcast. I don’t have a lot of mom friends and I just feel like I’m having a conversation with friends that understand me. This feeling of being known and understood is very comforting for moms in particular who are going through something hard. Motherhood is hard. Parenting is hard broadly, but mothers bear an interesting weight that is not always talked about.

Dave: This podcast, I wish it were available when my wife and I had younger children. Our oldest is 13, so 13, 11, and eight. But back in the day, we would travel the world and I’m like, well, I’m making the money and all she has to do is just… All she has to do. The stress that she had, having to figure it out on her own. The availability of technology and having something like this now makes it easier for a lot of women to connect and share those stories.

Sam: To echo that, people want to be validated. I tend to have more of a harsh tone about motherhood, and Lucy always gives me the comic relief I’m trying to portray to people. But I’ve learned that when we’re super real and honest, that is also when moms are reaching out and saying: oh my gosh, I feel that way too. But we’re still trying to keep it together. That’s been really good for me to hear. I’m not the only stay-at-home mom that’s really struggling. Hard is not bad. It’s just how we’re processing motherhood. And it’s okay for it to be hard, but it’s also okay to talk about it and be heard.

Dave: You said something that got my attention. Why do moms not feel heard?

Sam: I don’t have a boss or a career to fight against in order to be heard. I do have a husband where there are moments when I’m like, oh my gosh, do you not see all the things that I’m doing? The mental load is so intense. I’ve really been processing the mental load recently, thinking: is it a me problem? Was my mom dealing with this? I feel like we’re heard in deep friendships, but sometimes moms are afraid to feel like they’re complaining. But if they’re not being honest, or they don’t have a group of friends they can be honest with, they don’t feel heard. Sometimes my husband just literally cannot relate, just like I cannot relate to what he’s doing. I have found, and this is what I tell friends: I have two or three mom friends, not all of my mom friends, but two or three that I can voice note or text and be like, I’m having the worst day. Please tell me you go through this too. And just that validation: I feel more heard. I’ve stopped seeking it necessarily from my husband for those really bad mom days. I seek it in different ways with him. But for those moments, I have two or three mom friends I can go to.

Lucy: All I can relate it to is being in the corporate world. I don’t think women are going out of their way to say: when I wrap this call at 4:30, I need to hop in the car, immediately pick up my child, bring them home, have a couple of hours, and then log back on later. I’m feeling really overwhelmed because I need to do all this work in addition to trying to spend two hours with my kids. If you get in the right LinkedIn algorithm, it looks like all working moms are ruling the world, all posting about their mental load yet also crushing it. But in an actual corporate workplace, it’s not really appropriate to say: hey, I have a family that’s more important to me than my career. And if you’re an ambitious person, that connotation can look like she doesn’t care about this as much.

Dave: Both of you feel a pressure to portray yourselves in a certain way?

Lucy: I do for sure. Part of the reason I’ve been able to get where I’ve gotten in my career is that I’ve been able to maintain this put-togetherness that shows I can do both.

Sam: I care a lot about how I’m portrayed in different areas. But as a mother, I’m now seven years into this. This is who I am. I know deep down I’m doing a pretty good job, even though it’s really hard. I don’t care if I have a meltdown on the sidewalk in Brooklyn because my kids are throwing snacks on the ground and one isn’t getting in the stroller. In those moments, I don’t really care what you think of me. I’ve evolved into that because deep down I know I’m really trying. I’m not proving myself to a board meeting. I’m not proving myself to an interview. I do care deeply about what people think in other ways, but not when it comes to my job as a mom. I’ve evolved into: this is what I’m doing and I’m trying, and I deeply love my girls, and I think that’s all that matters.

Dave: Is there a common thread of pain that you hear from moms? Or is it very nuanced?

Lucy: The common thread is the mental load. However you want to talk about it, there are always going to be people who manage it differently. The mental load of: we deeply prioritize our health and working out. But while we’re on the Peloton bike, we might also be thinking about, do I need to schedule someone’s dentist appointment? And after I get off this bike, the kids are going to be up in six minutes and I want to make sure they have a healthy breakfast before I get them to school in 30 minutes. And after that, for me, it’s: I have eight hours of meetings today. There is never a time of silence in the head. There is a list, whether it be something very specific or something more theoretical, like what do I want to be in 15 years, or what do I want my kids to be in 15 years.

Sam: 100% mental load. And I also hear a lot of, maybe in our season of life: is this what I should be doing? Should I be spending this time away working? Do I really want to be a stay-at-home mom much longer? I don’t know. We’ve reached a point of motherhood where our kids are starting to get a little older, and it’s like we see a light at the end of the tunnel. I also hear a lot of: is this my purpose? Do I want to keep doing this? How could I do this better? How could I still have a career and spend more time with my kids, or how could I be fully present as a stay-at-home mom but also give myself limits? That’s a common theme.

Dave: That’s interesting because we shot the episode that’s coming after this one earlier with Dr. Daniel Franz, who is a logotherapist. What I’m hearing you say, Sam, is that it’s really a crisis of meaning. What purpose do I give myself to in all these areas of my life? So moms seem like they’re having a crisis of meaning on a rotational basis.

Dimitri: It’s almost because your role and your identity become intertwined. If your identity is wrapped up in the role of being a mother, but that role will wane and change over time, after the kids have moved on, then what are you as the woman, as the wife? That’s the question: how do we persist that sense of self through time?

Sam: We’ve asked guests that and it’s something we process ourselves: who were you before you had kids versus who you are now? Because that person changes literally overnight. The person you were before is fundamentally different. I would say especially in those zero to two years, I found I really lost myself. It’s very hard. You’re not sleeping. That’s the name of our podcast. That was the whole reason we called it that. And you’re dealing with a period of time where you’re like, I don’t entirely know who I was or who I’m going to be once I get out of this very intense period.

Lucy: And going back to the mental load, because it all ties together: overnight you now have these kids and your mental load explodes. I was literally just telling Sam off camera: was I thinking about these things before kids? And of course not, because I didn’t have all of this. But then all of a sudden my youngest is three and a half, my oldest is seven, and I’m finally allowing myself time to think about things other than the exact logistics. When you have so much going on, you don’t even allow yourself the time to think about where you want to go. And then you blink and it’s eight years later.

Sam: That’s why I love having this podcast with Lucy. I’m so inspired by her because I’m like, look what you created and did during that hard time. That first zero to five years is so all-consuming. You’re so sleep-deprived. You can barely function, yet we’re doing such amazing things. There’s not a lot of time to think: is this my purpose? Where should I be going? And then you come out of it and you’re 10 years later going: is this my purpose? I don’t know. You’re trying to survive. Literally.

Dave: Would you say relational health has been key to your sanity? You guys having each other and now this broader network and community of mothers?

Lucy: Oh yeah. It is midway through the day and Sam has already received two “how the heck” kind of texts about being a mom that I otherwise would have just been internalizing. Our husbands are amazing and can do a great job of listening, but processing certain things that we might be on the crazy train about as it relates to being a mom is a really special thing that happens in the construct of mom friends going through similar experiences.

Sam: 100%. Lucy has been my best friend since we were 19, so even before kids, I would call and text her about difficult times. Now with kids, it’s wonderful having that friendship. Going back to when I first had my daughter, I was living in San Francisco and I didn’t have a mom community. A random mom at my gym who had a two-year-old told me: your focus needs to be to find a mom community. I really took that to heart because we focus so much on how do I get my kid to sleep, is my kid eating right, there’s so much out there. I try to tell everybody: just find those two or three mom friends. Because Lucy can send me, I can send her a voice note at 5 a.m. about how I’m already annoyed at the day. That’s my biggest tip: find a couple of mom friends. They are invaluable.

Dave: You had Mel Goodman on your podcast. She’s the founder of WorkMom, a platform dedicated to helping ambitious mothers balance high-level careers with family life without burning out. She suggested there are four different kinds of loads on your life. You were processing that interview afterward. Do you still agree with her distinction of those four different loads? What’s the difference between emotional load and mental load?

Lucy: I think it’s interesting because I had never heard them pulled apart like that. And I think Mel’s entire premise is that there are a lot of terms going around right now, whether it’s mom guilt, mom load, that when lumped together are harder to pull apart and process why things feel heavy. The logistical load, for instance, is all the things that need to be planned, booked, tracked, and executed: booking flights for spring break, making sure the well visit at six and four is scheduled with the doctor three months out. All the little logistical things that come up constantly. The emotional load: I equate that to things like my child not wanting to dress in her uniform in the morning and throwing a tantrum about it. It’s not the end of the world. You’ll get through it. That kid is going to get out the door. But dealing with a tantrum when you’re already on a time crunch, and the emotional back and forth of trying to navigate someone who doesn’t have the regulation to do that yet, can be really challenging. The mental load I think is just the heaviness of the to-do list itself. Not the items on it, but the persistent awareness that the list exists and never fully clears. And then the identity load speaks to a lot of what Sam was saying: whether you’re a working mom or a stay-at-home mom, the question comes up frequently of, what is it all for? Was it all worth it? Was the way I spent my time aligned with my purpose?

Dave: [Mid-roll: Vitality Journey Workshop]

I wonder if any of these feelings sound like you today. I’m feeling stuck. I’m feeling depleted. Or even: I’m a little lost. It’s for you with those feelings that we created the Vitality Journey Workshop. This workshop experience is designed to help you step back, assess your life, do some dreaming, and then create a personal strategy for a healthier, more energized life. During this workshop, I’ll personally coach you through the six key areas that shape your vitality: your physical health, your emotional health, relational health, behavioral health, financial health, and vocational health. The end product of the workshop will be a simple, actionable plan to help you reset your life to a much higher level of vitality and joy. We’ve got two 90-minute workshops coming up in May. Saturday, May 2nd at 9 a.m. Eastern time, we’ll hold a live in-person gathering in Central Indiana. And on Tuesday, May 5th at 7 p.m. Eastern, we’ll hold a virtual Zoom workshop. There’s no cost to you for this workshop other than the accompanying journal. If you are ready to stop drifting and start living with intention, join me for the Vitality Journey Workshop. All the info can be found on our website, destiny-works.com. Come design the next chapter of your life. Now let’s get back to our conversation.

Dave: Speaking specifically about emotion: how do you maintain your own emotional wellbeing when your children are being out of control emotionally? How do you do that?

Sam: I think this is what is so hard about being a mother right now. I love how much we’re talking about things because I’m an open book. But the flip side is there is so much chatter about how to do it better, even though people aren’t using the word “better,” and when I’m not dealing with it well and my kids are in an outburst, and there’s all this stuff on social media coaching me how not to have those moments, that almost makes me feel worse about having that moment. Because I’m human. On a good day, I know my limits, and I’ve had to learn them. I need time for myself. And I need that through either working out, or if I can’t work out, setting my alarm 30 minutes earlier and hopefully my kids are not awake. If I can just take one sip of coffee before a child is awake, my day is a whole different day. I have just seen patterns in myself: when I give myself time, I am such a better mother when things go crazy. And sometimes when it’s truly chaotic, I go more calm. Sometimes you’re just like, this is absolutely chaotic. Me bursting out is not going to do anything. But I really think it starts with feeling like I have been given energy and time. I don’t want to hit rock bottom. I know what happens when I hit rock bottom and then I’m not a good mom during those moments.

Dave: That is unbelievably self-aware. I think one of the reasons your podcast is so successful is that both of you are self-aware. How did you come to the point where you can actually analyze your life and say, I need this, and this is what it’ll take? Was that a process, or did you serendipitously run into it?

Lucy: Trial and error. And talking about it. Going back to your mom friends and your community. This is something we ask every single guest because I think it’s so important: what is it that you do for yourself that’s not for you as a mom? Because it can get very easy to get wrapped up in being mom robot, caring for every single need at the complete sacrifice of your own. I particularly did a very bad job of this in the first two years of both of my kids’ lives. I deprioritized myself to a really big extent because in my mind, the time I spent for myself was working. But the reality was working plus mothering and not having any time to myself created a real rock bottom point where it was like, I need to have certain things in place. Mine is working out and having that time to myself in the morning to start from positive versus starting from negative. But I would say that came through time and trial and error.

Sam: Same. As much as I don’t want to say you have to hit rock bottom. I look back at my friends who only have a zero to one year old. I was not there when my kids were zero to one. This is 100% over being a mother of seven years and just starting to notice. I’ve always been somewhat self-aware, always kind of in tune with: that doesn’t make my body feel good, therefore I should probably get more sleep. But in terms of motherhood, I’ve had a few rock bottom moments. My husband travels a lot. We used to have an au pair and we decided not to, and then I went three months with barely any help. I was not a good mom. I was yelling a lot. My patience was so low that I was like, I don’t want to be this person anymore. So I need to do things to help me. We got another au pair. I asked my mom to come help more. I started to prioritize early morning workouts. Yeah, it has totally come through trial and error. And that’s one of my biggest things I tell stay-at-home moms: I know it sounds selfish, but we need time away from our kids. Whether it’s working out, going in your room and reading a book, walking, going on a phone call with your best friend. We just cannot be expected to be around them all the time and still handle those hard moments well.

Dimitri: Speaking to that, and going back to Mel Goodman’s framework: as husbands or partners who co-create families, how can we help support you in those spaces of identity and mental load? At one point I thought it was vacuuming the house for my wife. Didn’t matter. Or getting her favorite flavor of kombucha. But it was when I took the kids with me to Target that it really mattered. She had two hours. What can we do to help support those areas? Being a mom is a lonely journey. I was very participatory. We actually birthed all three of our children at home. But there are still places where I just have nothing. I don’t know what to do. If I’m there, I’m in the way. If I don’t go, I should have been there. How do we better support moms in these four areas?

Lucy: I literally think it’s just asking. Because that has been the big revelation for me coming out of this podcast: every woman wants something that’s a little bit different and very unique to her. I remember the very first time we interviewed someone and their response for their “me time” was not working out. I was shocked. I texted Sam: wait, I thought that’s what everyone said was their number one thing. Whether it’s: do you need one night a week to go play mahjong with your friends? Do you need a nap? Would you like me to always handle one specific thing? I think Sam has a really good example of this about what she did with her husband for Saturday mornings.

Sam: I had no idea, going into motherhood, how much mothers carry compared to fathers. That’s not saying anything wrong, it’s just a reality I was completely unprepared for. I actually shared this once in therapy. I joked with my therapist: am I going to be buying myself flowers on my 50th birthday? Because she kept telling me: you need to ask your husband for what you want. And I agree with that. But I also think husbands can observe. Every morning I unload the dishwasher. He could just randomly do that. Little things they could pick up on. But I’m also not opposed to asking. Emily Oster talks about the total responsibility transfer. And that is exactly what I do on Saturday mornings. I signed my daughter up for swim class. He knows swim class is at 10:30 to 11:30. I could be gone on a run until 10:22 and walk in the door, and he has to have the bag packed, the snacks packed, the girls ready, and know where to go. And if he doesn’t, I’m not allowing myself to do it for him. I just won’t do it. That has really helped to give him more responsibility and also give me the ability to say: if it goes wrong, it’s okay. I could care less what bathing suit they wear. I don’t care if they walk, stroll, or Uber. I just need you to do this responsibility for me. That has been really helpful. But I still think, going back to what Lucy says: just ask. All husbands can sense when their wives are overwhelmed. They could just ask: what could I give you this week? And that’s going to be different for every single mom in every moment.

Dave: I’m sitting here realizing both of you are so self-aware and so intentional. That’s probably why people tune into your podcast, because I don’t sense that everyone, and moms in particular, are as intentional as the two of you are. Do you sense that too?

Sam: I’m scared to speak for all moms. The more open I am, the more people are like, wow, you feel that too. I’m not sure we give ourselves enough time to be self-aware. I think moms need time for themselves. It’s my one thing. I started giving myself time away from my kids. I went on a trip to Japan for 10 days when my daughter was nine months old and I pumped five times a day in Japan. Some people would have thought: I can’t believe she left her nine-month-old. But I was like, if I don’t start giving myself time now, it’s going to get harder and harder. And when I’m open about the real struggles, I hear women being almost afraid to agree. They’re like: wait, you’re dealing with that too? I think we’re self-aware, but it’s hard. It’s really hard to be open and strong and successful and vulnerable and kind all at the same time.

Lucy: I think we are far more vocally intentional than a lot of people I know. And I’ll say that from the context of: we’re putting ourselves on a podcast talking about it. That’s about as vulnerable as you can be. And that has opened up so many small conversations with people who are like: I can’t believe you’re doing that.

Dave: So we’ve got young mothers who have lost themselves. They’re trying to sort out the new schedule. They have two new humans that did not come with instruction manuals now in their care. They have a husband who can’t do anything right or wrong. A young woman who’s listening to this podcast and watching this interview: where should she start? She’s overwhelmed. She’s having a hard time. She’s new to motherhood. The schedule is weird. She can’t really connect with people. Her friends aren’t in the same stage. Where does she start?

Lucy: Start by giving yourself grace, first and foremost. We just interviewed a mom last week who gave that same advice when she started her homeschooling journey: give yourself grace to figure it out, and give your family grace to learn a new way of working together. It’s very similar for new moms. You are not going to have every answer overnight. You are going to be Googling everything when that child first coughs. And listening to our podcast could be, if anything, just a comic relief to know that other people are going through this too. Broadly, there are more resources than ever. And I think moms just need to know: no matter what you’re doing, you are doing a great job. Your kid is cared for. Your kid is loved. Despite how hard it feels in the moment, it will also get easier when you start to sleep again.

Sam: My biggest thing is trying to find a mom tribe. I know that it’s painful to go to those new classes and meetups. The only way I found my mom friends in Charlotte was because I went to a read-aloud at a library and the librarian said: who’s a first-timer? I did not want to raise my hand. But I did. I didn’t want any attention. And the reason I raised my hand and said my daughter’s Isla, another mom said: oh my gosh, my niece is Isla. We exchanged numbers and now I have mom friends. Nobody is going to be an advocate for you but you. Figure out what you’re struggling with. If it’s being sleep-deprived, ask your husband to help you sleep. If it’s really needing mom friends, put yourself out there a little bit. As a stay-at-home mom especially, you are so lonely all day. If you can just find, and in-person is really great: go to a story time or a school or a meetup. There are so many moms wanting to be friends. It’s incredible.

Dave: This is so good. But relational health, this goes back to relational health. It is the key to sanity. It has come up again and again in this conversation. Relational health, emotional health. The Harvard longest longitudinal study of human behavior found that the number one source of happiness is relationships. There is nothing that replaces it. And here’s something for you to look forward to: the greatest predictor of happiness when you get older will be the state of your relationships, in particular the state of your marriage, at age 50. They boil it down. Whatever is going on in your relationships at age 50 will predict your happiness in your 70s and 80s. So there you have it: relational health, man.

Lucy: 10 more years to figure it out.

Dave: You’ve got time. That’s plenty of time. Thank you both. This is great. I highly recommend that our listeners tune into “We’ll Sleep When We’re Dead.” The other night, Lucy, your mom said: we’re going to watch the podcast. And we sat down and watched it, thinking, okay, is this not going to relate to me? I enjoyed it. It did relate to me. I was taking stuff away and it is really cool. We’ll put a link so you can find their podcast. Just as a husband and father, looking at this and understanding my wife through another perspective: sometimes I am her precipitating factor. I’m the person that agitated her, or I’m just part of the environment that is her chaos. She can’t lament to me because I’m part of the thing. Just two episodes of watching your guys’ perspective and thinking: oh, that’s what it felt like for her. I can better support her. We need to get the dudes watching your podcast.

Lucy: We sure do. We have a few diehards.

Dave: We wrap up every one of our episodes with a blessing. I chose this for you and for moms. John O’Donohue, from his book of blessings. This one is for one who is exhausted.

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic, time takes on the strain until it breaks. Then all the unattended stress falls in on the mind like an endless increasing weight. Weariness invades your spirit. Gravity begins falling inside you, dragging down every bone. You’ve traveled too fast over false ground. Now your soul has come to take you back. Take refuge in your senses. Open up to all the small miracles you rushed through. Draw alongside the silence of stone until its calmness can claim you. Be excessively gentle with yourself. Gradually, you will return to yourself, having learned a new respect for your heart and the joy that dwells far within slow time.

We’ll see you all next time on The Vitality Journey Podcast.