Decision Fatigue: This is Why You Can’t Make Even One More Decision [Webinar]
Researchers say the average adult makes 35,000 decisions daily and if moms are involved, I won’t be surprised if it’s twice that number. I recently spent an entire evening researching "the best lunchboxes" when shopping for my 7-year-old. Bento? Those reusable Ziploc-type thingies? Should I get stainless steel or will that be too heavy? Wait how many compartments should it have?
When the Mental Load Becomes Too Much:
I realize now that it wasn't about the lunch box. I had been carrying so much of the mental load for my family, that making one more goddamn decision was nearly paralyzing. Another way to describe this feeling? Decision Fatigue. And I am certainly not alone in experiencing it.
A recent piece in The New York Times notes that there's a new study that concluded that 66 percent of working parents meet the criteria for parental burnout. "Parental burnout" is a nonclinical term that means parents are so exhausted by the pressure of caring for their children, they feel they have nothing left to give.
Sound familiar?
Decision Fatigue is Real:
When we took to IG Stories to ask our Mom Group community what kinds of decisions were weighing on them the most lately, the responses were illuminating: Out of 125 responses (and counting), 75 included either the stress of childcare decisions, or school-related decisions (especially relating to daycare). (Other causes of burnout: the constant risk assessment that parenting in COVID requires, whether to stay at home or go back to work, and of course, finances.)
It is not surprising that so many folks responded that childcare-related decisions were making them nuts. A 2018 study published in Academic Pediatrics concluded that American mothers had a lower chance of suffering clinical depressive symptoms when they perceived having access to good choices related to childcare.
Childcare IS mental health care. And without adequate childcare, and other structural supports that are essential to maintaining mental health for parents, decision fatigue and parental burnout won’t be going anywhere soon.
How to Cope With Decision Fatigue:
On the heels of the pandemic especially, parents are beyond burned out, anxious and overwhelmed. The thought of having to make one more decision has become paralyzing, causing us to rethink even the smallest of everyday choices. In this conversation hosted by parenting and childcare experts Vivvi, with clinical psychologist Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco and me (Alexis, founder of Not Safe For Mom Group) we dig into what causes “Decision Fatigue” and how to use coping strategies to help lower the stakes and put things into perspective.
What We Discuss in the Webinar:
Managing burnout
Overcoming anxious moments
Perseverance when feeling overwhelmed
Watch the whole thing (below) to learn from a psychologist about ways to reduce this often-paralyzing feeling. Comment below: What types of parenting-related decisions make you want to pull your hair out?
