When one mom wrote a confessional blog post about what she called “stay-at-home-mom depression,” countless women across the internet seemed to respond with a resounding: “Same.”
Many of the articles that followed referenced a 2012 Gallup Poll that revealed, “Non-employed women with young children at home are more likely than employed [mothers] to report experiencing sadness and anger a lot of the day…Stay-at-home moms are also much more likely to report having ever been diagnosed with depression than employed moms. Employed moms are about as emotionally well-off as working women who do not have children at home.”
As a steady stream of best sellers and articles suggests, a stay-at-home mom can be simultaneously grateful to be home with her kids (never missing a moment!) and feel guilty complaining about her privilege, while still grappling with the social isolation; fractured identity (usually accompanied by a career downshift); mountain of unending, unacknowledged, unpaid labor; the reconfiguring of her marriage around retrograde gender roles; and the unique societal stigma attached to the word “homemaker.” For some women, staying at home is a choice; for others it’s a financial and logistical necessity. It can also be both.
To help manage the mess of emotions that can weigh on even the most resolved stay-at-home mom or parent, we consulted with Dr. Aliza Pressman, director of clinical programming for the Mount Sinai Parenting Center in New York, and host of the podcast Raising Good Humans. Our edited and condensed conversation is below.