Self-care, “Me” Time and Revenge Bedtime Procrastination: A Key to Certain Burnout within Motherhood.

 Self-care, “Me” Time and Revenge Bedtime Procrastination: A Key to Certain Burnout within Motherhood.

By Lea Altea Winnen                                                                                                August 3, 2024

Did you forget to brush your teeth again, before bed last night?  You had to wrestle your kiddos to get them to bush theirs, reminding them how important it is and oops, you forget yours.  How about that shower you meant to take…mmm… 3 days ago…oops!   When you feel overwhelmed by your day-to-day life, do you struggle with fitting everything into a cohesive schedule? Do you have the needed support at home? When you are fighting against trying to balance taking care of your kiddos, keeping the house relatively clean, working, and any random thing that comes up, it can be difficult to engage in self-care acts or relaxation (me time). As a mother or caregiver of small children, it can be difficult to find time in your day for these types of activities.

Everyone wants some “Me” time (relaxation), so we try to pack it into our day in any way we can. According to the online article called Revenge Bedtime Procrastination: Why People Do It and How to Stop by Itamar Shatz, PHD, “Revenge bedtime procrastination occurs when people delay going to sleep in order to feel in control of their life and schedule. This phenomenon is particularly associated with people who feel that they have little time for themselves during the day, for example due to their work schedule, so they delay sleep until late at night in order to have leisure time that they’re in control of…’. People who have to share their time doing for everyone else and not get any time to themselves, whether due to caring for a family, engaging in household labor, or with a stressful job environment, struggle with this phenomenon.  They might be mindlessly scrolling on their phones, or binge-watching Netflix.  Basically, they desire to just have a little space to themselves, and they overdo it, by staying up too late at night and then are exhausted the next day.  This leads to poor decision-making, poor memory, irritability, and struggles with emotional regulation.

Now let’s look at a mother, who is trying to juggle, caring for children, working, and engaging in household labor. In the article, Revenge Bedtime Procrastination: A Plight of our Times by Maria Cohut, Ph.D from the website Medical News Today, it stated, “An American Psychological Association survey from 2010, for example, noted that women are more likely than men to report that they experience significant stress…The data revealed that “[w]omen are more likely to report physical and emotional symptoms of stress than men,” including headaches, feeling that they were about to cry, or having an upset stomach…(due to) the amount of unpaid work they engage in, often as primary caretakers of children and older family members.”  Motherhood is a job that requires 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.  If you add on a full-time job, laundry, cooking, food shopping, and other tasks seen in our society as “a women’s works”, It is reasonable to understand why her need for engaging in basic self-care acts and “me time” can be a difficult endeavor. 

Too many times, it is a concept of “me time”, if a mother gets to take a shower, run a family errand, or if she gets to go to the grocery store without having to bring her children.  Taking care of basic necessities doesn’t count as the time a wife and mother may need to keep from falling into burnout.  Women are somehow expected to figure out how to juggle taking care of kids, household labor, and work without bothering their partner.  The term “Supermom” was created, according to the Gnovis Journal article by Amanda Brennan, and The Fantasy of the Supermom, by Arlie Hochschild.  In Hochschild’s 1989 book, The Second Shift, a Supermom is. “…the 1970-80s images of the ideal working mother simultaneously carrying a briefcase and a child.”  And the idea is still alive and well in 2024.

So as women, we need to have a greater respect for ourselves, and our time, and a higher standard for the roles of our partners in caring for the family home and children.  Becoming more vocal about our needs and time for relaxation is a needed commodity if we are going to stop the cycle of Revenge Bedtime Procrastination and avoid certain burnout from having to be expected to manage both health, hearth, and home.

Reference Websites:

What is revenge bedtime procrastination? (medicalnewstoday.com)Revenge Bedtime Procrastination: Why People Do It and How to Stop – Solving Procrastination

What is revenge bedtime procrastination? (medicalnewstoday.com)

http://gnovisjournal.geogetown.edu/journal/the-fantasy-of-the-supermom/