“You’re a Mom” Is Not a Diagnosis

Photo by Simon Rae on Unsplash

It happened once more, just a year or so ago.

I was at the doctor’s, complaining of low energy. He looked at my chart and saw that I have two small children, at the time ages three and four, and I saw his answer to me in his eyes before he even said it.

Dude, no, I thought, please don’t go there. Don’t say it.

He said it: “Well I mean, you’re a mom. Of course you’re tired.”

I sighed. This again.

Here’s the thing: moms everywhere are tired, don’t get me wrong. Most of us are exhausted from having to be parents and partners and friends and whole-people, especially after a worldwide pandemic pushed us to take on more roles than usual. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m sick of all of the pressure that’s put on parents — mothers especially — to be everything to their children and to “have it all.” That’s not a thing. And trying to achieve it is exhausting. So yes, I get it.

But I wasn’t complaining about wanting to pass out at the end of the day, or emotional exhaustion, or even that want for a nap in the middle of the day after not sleeping well the night before. What I had was worse than that.

Each morning, I’d wake up at 6:30 AM still tired, drink (often highly-caffeinated) tea to wake up enough to homeschool my kids, and then ultimately drag myself along until noonish, when I’d wind up finally hitting such a strong wall that I’d have to leave my kids to play on their tablets while I took a two-hour nap. I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d woken up feeling rested, nor could I recall getting to 11:00 AM without crashing like a car with no brakes. That is, if the brakeless car also had no gas, or tires, and was not a car and was actually a particularly large rock.

Point being, this didn’t feel normal. But, according to about three medical professionals at that point, having children automatically made it normal.

To be fair, I’d been able to get a couple of them to run cursory bloodwork, and everything came back within range. I wasn’t anemic. My thyroid was fine. My blood sugar, platelet count, and vitamin D were all fine. So at least in that regard, there wasn’t really anything to find.