A recent news report/survey stated that 96% of today’s moms feel that they are more stressed than their mothers had been.  I think that is pretty accurate.  And unfortunate.  Do you ever stop and wonder how is it that we live in the information age, with advanced technology, instant communication and improved and enhanced merchandise to make life and mothering as easy as possible, and yet stress levels are higher?  Maybe the advancements and the improvements and the “stuff” haven’t really advanced and improved our lives.  Maybe all the demands and pressures and “keeping up” are proving more trouble than they are ultimately worth.  The moms before us made do with much less, and apparently lived remarkably better.  How has that happened?

We are such an intense culture.  We take ourselves and our children very, very, seriously. Perhaps too seriously.  Perhaps the focus on children and their safety and their success and their happiness and their entertainment is just a little lopsided.  Perhaps expecting perfection out of them and ourselves is proving to be unbearable.  Perhaps taking responsibility for ourselves and our children and their performance and mistakes and victories and defeats is sending us a little over the top.  Perhaps we have bitten off more than we can chew.  Perhaps we have bitten off more than anyone can chew.  More than anyone was ever meant to chew.

So let’s take a look backwards and examine why it is that our moms were not as worn out, stressed out, and burned out as us.  Wouldn’t it feel good to do less?  Wouldn’t it be lovely not to feel like you are the one responsible for solving all problems and making everything alright?  Wouldn’t it feel liberating if your child’s mistakes were not immediately assumed to be your mistakes?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the answer Because I said so was sufficient?  Wouldn’t you just love not to feel like you were in a race, where the first mom to get her child to read, write, excel, and go to college was the only winner?  Wouldn’t it be lovely to win by just being average?

Before 1960, that’s what motherhood was like.  In the 60’s, everything changed and for the mother, not for the better.  In the 60’s the focus on child rearing switched from the parent to the child.  In the 60’s a child’s self-esteem and feelings took priority over his behavior.  In the 60’s we became far more concerned about why a child misbehaved than the behavior itself.  In the 60’s psychological answers and explanations absolved children of responsibility, creating victims rather than offenders.  And in the 60’s, when the rightful equality and roles of women began to rise, the leadership and authority of the woman in the home was undercut.  So today women are stressed out because we have become leaders and managers in the work place, but in the home we are reduced to servants, controlled and manipulated by the culture and our kids.

But I promise, it should not be this way. You deserve better than that.  Husbands and fathers deserve better than that.  And your children deserve better than that.  You deserve respect and your children desperately need to respect you.  Because I said so is a fine answer, and it does not harm the psyche of your child.  Quite the opposite.  It reassures your child.  It confirms for him that you are capable of leading him, of caring for him, of providing for him.  Your confidence makes him confident.  Your security in your role makes your child secure.  And your refusal to assume responsibility for his behavior, his mistakes, and his choices forces your child to take responsibility for himself.  And that is what growing up is all about.  And childhood is the time to do it, when the mistakes and recovery are small, and the consequences not so far reaching.

In our cultural drive to protect and control and prevent suffering of any kind on the part of our children, we are ironically creating the odds of increased suffering for them as adults.  As we manage their every step, supervise their every move, instruct their every moment, and assume responsibility for their performance on almost every front, we are robbing them of experiencing life lessons that should be learned in childhood.  And so a whole generation of kids is coming out of college, very well educated, but very poorly prepared to face life.  Sadly most of them still have yet to learn the disciplines and experience the struggles meant for childhood.  Only now the lessons are much harder and the struggles are much more overwhelming.

And so 96% of moms say that they are more stressed out than their mothers were.  How can they not be?  And I bet a good percentage of  twenty somethings get up and “tweet” to the world what they had for breakfast.  Because they are certain that someone will want to know.  But what their words scream loud and clear is my world is really small and I am the center of it. How can it not be? But I don’t think it’s what we really want.  I think what we want is what we lost.  I think we’d like to take a few ques from our mothers.  Because it can be different.  I dare you, mom.  Reclaim your authority in your home.  Lead, don’t serve. You deserve more.