From toddlers to teens, which kids are toughest on mums?
Juggling children and work is a mother lode of responsibility – and Mother’s Day is the ideal time to reflect what they do. But which age group is the most demanding on mum?
Mothers of toddlers who think they’ve got it bad now had better look out: the stress only increases as children age. The latest snapshot of the average mother in 2017 shows that mums with teenagers are the most stressed, thanks to academic pressures, hectic family timetables and the need to keep children safe in the digital world.
But the study also found mothers in general were handling stress better, even though they were generally working more, and were looking after their health by eating well and drinking less alcohol.
Data from Medibank’s Better Health Index reveals a third of mothers feel they are “suffering” from stress, compared with just a quarter of the general population. But the data also indicated mothers, while stretched, were more capable of juggling their responsibilities, with 67 per cent of those surveyed complaining there were not enough hours in the day, compared with 73 per cent who said the same in 2007-08.
Medibank chief medical officer Dr Linda Swan says mothers today tend to make healthier choices, with significant drops in the proportion of mums visiting fast-food outlets, binging on chocolate and consuming alcohol. About half of mothers reported drinking alcohol in the week before the survey but the average number of drinks was just three – half that of the general population.
“There are really positive trends, with a lot of indicators that mums are taking greater care of themselves,” Dr Swan says.
Mums are also bucking the obesity trend, with 57.5 per cent classed as overweight or obese compared with 62.6 per cent of the general population.
More mothers are now working full time, up from 60 per cent to 65 per cent, while 73 per cent report living a “full and busy life” compared with just 66 per cent of the general population.
Exercise is one area that needs improvement, with just 51 per cent physically active in the three months before the survey.
Dr Swan says mothers’ stress intensifies as their children age – 71.1 per cent of mums with children aged 12-15 say they don’t have enough time each day, compared with 65 per cent of mums of kids five and under, and 67.8 per cent of mums of kids aged 6-11.
“Everybody knows when baby first comes home it’s really stressful and tiring but, interestingly, our data suggests it’s when the kids are in high school that mothers are getting the most stressed,” says Dr Swan, adding that is often the time when parents are working more and support systems including mothers’ groups and grandparents were not as readily available.
“As a society we put a lot of care and attention around those early years, making sure mums are successful, but it raises questions of whether we have got enough support for mothers juggling the teenage years because there are whole different set of challenges there.
“It’s a different type of stress. When baby arrives you’re exhausted and frightened by the unknown, and when they’re teenagers it’s behavioural issues and concerns about things like drugs and unwanted pregnancies.
“When the kids are older, parents are more isolated, they may not have that support network and it’s less socially acceptable to say, ‘I’m concerned my daughter’s taking drugs’. That might not be a conversation they want to have with other mums.”
University of NSW social policy centre’s Professor Lyn Craig says concerns about academic success, safety and timetabling dominate a mother’s stress in 2017 – and it gets worse the older children are.
Prof Craig says parenting is more complex than a decade ago and includes challenges unseen in previous generations. “We’re in a society now which makes it not particularly easy to raise children,” she says. “Like with social media. How to parent is not handed down from grandmother to mother. It’s something new that people have to learn, get across and decide how to deal with now.”
Prof Craig says a sense of community is scarce for many families. “Kids used to be able to ride a bike … and it felt more like there were neighbourhoods populated with eyes on the street but now it’s really individualistic – if you don’t live in a strong community, it falls more on you to make your kids safe,” she says.
She said academic success was also stressing out mums like never before.
“It has become a more intense worry for parents than 20 or 30 years ago as there is a feeling you have to equip your kids for a competitive and harsh environment; they’ve got to have an edge,” she says. “I think raising children is hard – it’s a job, it’s work being done. It’s supposed to be this lovely thing in life, but it actually requires a lot of effort, attention and thought to keep it all running smoothly.”
TODDLERS
Dodges Ferry mum Zoe Featherstone, 36, has three children aged three and under, and while she says life is extremely busy, she does not find it stressful – as long as she has a plan.
“It’s busy. The days are really full but I’m always having lots
of fun with the kids,” she says of life with Isla, 3, Claudia, 2, and Beau, 1. “I’m sure the juggling will be different when they’re older, but for now I’m enjoying the fun of it.”
Featherstone recently returned to work as an accountant three days a week, after taking 10 months parental leave following Beau’s birth. With her husband, Simon, working full time, the children are in childcare three days a week and much forward planning is required to ensure things run smoothly.
And Featherstone makes a conscious effort to find time to look after herself.
“By the time we finish work and pick the kids up, get them home, feed them, shower them, get them into bed AND pack the lunches for the next day, there’s no time to just sit down and watch TV in the evenings,” she says.
“But we do eat pretty well. It doesn’t necessarily always work out to eat as a family all the time. Often you just try to have things ready for the children as soon as they get home from childcare and we eat dinner later. I pre-make and freeze a lot of food for them.”
She says getting regular exercise is about more than just physical health.
“Monday and Friday are my days off and my gym has childcare, so on those mornings I can get up, go to the gym, do an hour’s workout and the kids enjoy the outing as well,” she says.
“And the gym is as good for my mental health as it is for my physical health. Not only in terms of the ‘me time’, but also because I meet and talk to lots of other mums at the gym, so it’s a good social outing for me as well.”
Featherstone says there is nothing easy about the juggling act, but if you can get the balance right, your reward is the occasional opportunity to just enjoy life.
“Having play dates with other kids is a great way to keep the kids occupied while also giving you some time to have an adult conversation with someone for a while,” she says.
“And we try to keep up with the housework as much as we can through the week so that on weekends, when we’re all home, it can just be family time and we can have fun together.”
MIDDLINGS
It took a serious health scare to make Jen Murnaghan, 41, realise how badly she had run herself into the ground as a new mother. She says it is easy to fall into the trap of feeling guilty for daring to take time for yourself when raising small children.
“When you’re a new mum, you’re stressed about hitting certain targets for their feeding and sleeping, always thinking the worst,” she says. “Then when they get older there’s the stresses of starting school, socialising, hoping they’re eating properly, worrying about learning difficulties and so on, so it’s easy to get pulled down into all that.”
Describing herself as both independent and ambitious, Murnaghan is a digital marketing consultant running her own business, Digital Dandy, and was working as a freelance consultant when she had her children.
She says she felt a huge drive to keep busy and working while also raising her sons Jack, 9, and Charlie, 8.
“I needed to feel like I still had value, even though I had brought two kids into the world
– and what is more valuable than that?” she says. “So I had a part-time job, I was writing for a children’s blog, writing for my own blog, I had multiple jobs, which was quite ridiculous now I look back at it. So I had to learn to say no.”
Mothers are often poor at looking after themselves because they tend to feel selfish if they put themselves first even occasionally, but Murnaghan says she is a lot better on that front than when Jack and Charlie were babies.
“I got my wake-up call when I was diagnosed with an autoimmune illness that was triggered by stress, exhaustion and pregnancy,” she says. “That was when I knew I had to reach out to others for help.”
Murnaghan says running her own business allows her the flexibility to work around the children’s schedules. Her husband, Vince Trim, is executive chef at Moorilla’s Source restaurant, and works long hours, so the couple takes care to ensure at least one of them is always home for the children.
Murnaghan makes a point of exercising and finding time for herself. “It has been through help from friends that I’ve learnt to find the right balance, and the importance of keeping it,” she says.
TEENAGERS
Electrona mum Angela Lord, 42, agrees with the report’s findings that child-raising only gets more demanding as the kids get older. With three children aged 17, 15 and 12, the stay-athome mum says she and husband, Dennis, seem to be taking on a constant parade of new concerns and activities.
“It certainly gets busier, in that we are doing more running around in the car with sports and activities and socialising and so forth,” Lord says. “I do refer to the car as mum’s taxi. Then there’s all the additional issues with things like social media – I loathe it. Being on it all the time just makes your life even busier.
“I’ve always made sure I’ve had access to their social media and on a couple of occasions I’ve shut down Facebook accounts for various reasons. You read so many stories about teenagers getting caught up in bad situations, I don’t like taking chances with it.”
But while it is hard to deny the additional stresses of being a mum to teenagers, Lord has found the best way to deal with the stress is simply not to overcomplicate her life.
“I’m not a woman who has that many needs, so to speak,” she laughs. “I don’t waste my time worrying that I don’t have time to get to the gym because I probably wouldn’t have done that anyway.
“My main outlet is just having coffee with friends and I have always made time for that. I don’t ever feel I have missed out on anything because I was busy with the kids. Whether I had friends and their kids here or if I took the kids to a friend’s place for coffee, I’ve always had lots of kids around and I’ve always been fine with that.
“I do a couple of days’ volunteer work at the Snug Village nursing home each week just to give me something to do outside the house, really, and that keeps me happy.”