Do You Want to be a “Silent Quitting” Mom

By: Alysia Lyons

(4 mins)

“Silent Quitting” is the new buzzword floating around the digital world. Until I sat down to write this blog, the sense I got was that this trend was a bad thing, and I started wondering if there are moms out there who are silent quitting in their children’s lives.

When I googled the definition of silent quitting, I came across this definition: doing the task involved with your assigned role at work, no more, no less; doing your job without your job taking over your life.

Based on this definition, I sent a message to my friend and asked, “How exactly is silent quitting a bad thing?” And she responded, “It’s not. I think it’s setting healthy boundaries, but our society has made us believe it’s bad to do that.”

I got a little more curious about the idea of silent quitting as a parent, so I headed back to Google to see if anyone else was talking about it. And I ran across an article on thebump.com talking about quiet quitting parenting.

In a job, silent quitting is basically disengaging from your job. You’re doing what you are paid to do in the amount of time you were hired to do the job. No more, no less. The goal is to have more of a work-life harmony, so your job isn’t taking over your life with little to no reward.

But what would it mean if you were silent quitting as a mom?  What would that look like?

In thebump.com article, Lauren Barth talks about the things we do as moms that fill up our schedules in a way that doesn’t serve our kids or us. I think of it as “keeping up with the Joneses” as parents. We see other moms killing it on Pinterest and Instagram baking cookies for school and sewing Halloween costumes instead of ordering them on Amazon.

Lauren reminds us that if we love doing these things, by all means, keep doing them. But if we do them simply because we see other moms doing it and we think it’ll make our kids love us more, it’s time to let that thought go.

Our kids love us if we have a homemade meal from scratch on the table every night or if we pop a frozen pizza in the oven because that’s the best we can muster that evening. Our kids care more about the quality time we spend with them so much more than the tasks we check off our to-do list for them.

I wrote a blog pretty early on in my coaching career called, “Ask your child their love language.” If you’re unfamiliar with the 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, I highly recommend it. I first read it to help me in my marriage, but many years later, I discovered it was not only useful in healing my relationship with my dad, but it helped me create a stronger bond with my son.

I wanted my son to know that I love him, and I wanted him to know it the way he felt love, so I asked him, “What do I do to make you feel the most loved?”

We want our children to know they are loved and feel it deeply from us. And a lot of times, we use the examples of what other moms are doing for their kids to guide us with what we are doing. But our kids are the greatest resource for finding out the best way to love them.

Silent quitting for moms can look like this: make a list of what’s important to you for your family and what activities truly bring you joy. Then drop the things you do just because you think you should. I’m sure laundry and dishes are at the top of that list, but in those cases, try delegating instead of just dropping. You may miss having clean clothes and dishes.

Parenting, according to what is important to you and your children, is much more rewarding, fulfilling, and probably less stressful than doing things just because we see other moms doing them. Once upon a time, we raised children together in our families and small communities. Now we have access to see what the whole world is doing and judge ourselves on our limitations.

I think it’s important to remember that our children choose us to be their moms, and we are equipped with the tools we need to help mold them into happy and healthy adults.

If you’re struggling with this and would like to join a community of Facebook moms, feel free to join my group, Moms Conquering Guilt. I am passionate about helping driven moms determined to enjoy every day, love on their kids more, and feel freedom in their life. Don’t settle for the status quo; you deserve so much more.

Alysia Lyons
                                                                     All Things Wellness, LLC
                                                               [email protected]

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