And part of why I think this is so important to ask ourselves is because I think a lot of moms are carrying the mental load of things that are not real or are not relevant right now. So something that is not real would be you watching two of your girls kind of like bicker with each other and having the thought they don’t have a good sibling relationship.

One of my really good friends came from a family of six. And they’re so close that they’re always trying to figure out how to move into the same city where they all live in the same place. So I sat down with her once and I said, Hey, what were you guys like as siblings? Because I only had one brother was not raised Catholic. And she was like, we were. So mean to each other.

And yet it had nothing to do with the strength of their adult relationships. And so if I were to ask her mom in a slice of time where she saw two of the girls kind of bickering with each other and say, Hey, do they have a good relationship or not? The mom might have been like, oh no, and I’m really worried about them.

That mom might have been inaccurately assessing their current relationships. Maybe they were. Good sisters, but they’re like always just gonna bicker about whatever the three things that they bicker about are. My girls, bless them, just cannot seem for the life of them to keep hairbrushes in the bathroom. I don’t know where they go.

And then they blame each other. If you only saw that hot topic, you might be worried, oh, these sisters really don’t like each other. And then there’s the future version of these kids and the story that we’re telling ourselves, which, and they will not be friends as adults, which is so sad, right? When we’re raising kids, we want them to be a support system for each other.

Especially. If you are a Catholic convert or you have kind of a fractured family and you’re trying to build this good family that supports and loves each other and you’re worried that you’re not doing a good job and that that’s not what they’re gonna have in the future.

So if we’re sitting around our living room and the kids aren’t even in the living room and we are carrying the mental lobe. Of believing that these kids don’t have a good relationship right now and or they won’t have a good relationship in the future. I don’t think you should be carrying that mental load.

And so I certainly don’t think that. Then we should make a list of all the things that you just happen to be thinking about and then go to your husband and say, Hey, we should share this list. Without challenging the list in the first place.

Another topic that I do so much coaching around is just schooling. Looking at whatever kid at whatever age in whatever schooling option you’ve chosen. It doesn’t matter. And thinking something is really wrong right now, and something is gonna be really wrong in the future.

And I’m not saying that as moms, we shouldn’t have a pulse on our kids because sometimes they do need a little bit more scaffolding or training. Right. Maybe one of the kids needs to be diagnosed with dyslexia and then given specific tools for that. But I still wouldn’t worry about it. I would go, Hey, this kid looks like he needs some help. I’m gonna figure it out. It’s gonna be fine.

And maybe with the siblings, we need to give them more language around forgiveness and repair. But you can still choose to do that without thinking, oh no, this relationship is a big problem. When I look at my kids, I often just think, there’s some skills here that are needed, or there’s some tools that I could give them.

And I’m still problem solving, but not from the place of, you know, I failed them. And there’s this big doom and gloom story. We often find this around balancing all the roles that our children play, right? We want them to help kind of clean the house, but we also want them maybe to do music or sports or to enjoy books or to care about their Catholic faith.

We have this idea about how the we want them to live, and then when any of those things start to feel at odds with each other, which happens quite easily, when the calendar starts filling up, then we feel stressed.

We think, oh, no. I’m not doing some sort of important childhood thing because I’m not giving them X, Y, Z skill or activity. And more than anything, I just really wanna challenge you to maybe write down a lot of the mental load things that you’re keeping and ask yourself, is that necessary? Is it necessary?

One of the things that we did very early on in our family is we decided we were not gonna go out all out and have big birthday parties for the kids every year because I have six kids. And so we go all out and throw a big birthday party when they turn 10. And we think when they turn 16, my oldest is 15, but I kind of see 16 coming and I think these will be the two ages that we have. Like really big, invite your friends over, put up the decorations parties.

So as a family, we celebrate each kid and they get to pick breakfast and dinner and we make them a cake. And sometimes we do some light decorations ’cause the kids like to do that for each other. But it does not stress me out.

But the whole like big party thing for me personally felt stressful and overwhelming. And so if I were to go to my husband and say, oh my gosh, I’m so stressed about having birthday parties for these kids, bless my husband, who is a hardcore engineer, he’d be like, why are we doing that?

So he would see that the birthday party thing was optional. It wasn’t a salvation issue. It’s not required to have a happy childhood. And so if I said, Hey, I’m stressed about plates and decorations and invitations and cake and all these things, I need you to share this mental load with me. He’d be like, why are we even carrying that mental load? We don’t need to give a big party to this 4-year-old kid.

Now I’m just telling you what we’re doing in our family and one example, but I want you to make the list of all the things that you’re carrying the mental load on, and first take it to the Lord and go through each one of them in prayer time with the Lord and say, Lord, do you want me to be doing this like this the way that I’m doing it, or at all?

Prudence is so important. Prudently, deciding what to think about is part of your job as a mom. We shouldn’t just be carrying everything. Now I consider myself really good at this. I’ve been teaching women to do this for 10 years, and I go through seasons where it starts to get to be a lot on my plate, and then I pause and I bring it to the Lord and I pair it back down until it’s manageable again.

So it’s an ever-changing process, but I refuse to live up here being super stressed, drowning. And feeling, oh gosh, it’s just like stretched thin. That’s the feeling it feels like to me. Like I’m just stretched in so many places and I can’t get it all done, but I don’t lie and tell myself that all the things that I’ve committed to and I’m thinking about are necessary. ’cause usually they’re not.

And so step one for all of you is just write down what mental load you have and ask yourself, should I even be carrying this at all? Do that with the Lord. And then when the list is done, maybe you do wanna share some of those things with your husband and say, Hey, could you please be the point person on this particular topic?

But first, it must start with the Lord and with discernment. And even just your ability to open your brain up and go, maybe I don’t need to carry this right now. Maybe I’m worried about something that isn’t true.

And I’ll go back to the sibling example where you could be carrying this weight of your kids not being friends as adults. But that’s not even happening right now. God is not asking you to carry that. It’s just a story in your mind, a painful story for sure. but it’s not even true. We don’t know if it’s gonna be true.

And it’s gonna zap so much of your energy to live in fear instead of receiving what God has for us, holding the things that he’s actually asking us to hold for which we always get enough strength for, and grace and mercy for, right? The things that He wants us to do. And you’re gonna find that that feels so much better.

I’m praying for you. Please pray for me and have a blessed day,