“I'm so exhausted I resent my own kids”
A parent may love the kids and still dread the sound of their voices by evening. Feeding, cleaning and negotiating can feel like a job with no end to the shift, and moments that should be warm feel flat. Many parents feel this and hide it, because it seems unsayable. What matters most is whether the exhaustion comes from parenting itself, from everything around it, or from a low mood that has spread across the whole of life.
What to check first
It helps to check sleep, physical health and how long this has been going on, since weeks of broken nights can produce most of these feelings by themselves. Thyroid trouble, anemia and postpartum depression can look like plain tiredness, and a doctor can check for them. Any thoughts of running away for good, hurting a child or not being alive call for talking to someone today.
What could be going on
Parental burnout (Mikolajczak and Roskam): Fits if parenting itself has drained you, you feel more distant from your kids than you used to, and being their parent gives you little pleasure.
Major depression: Check whether the low mood and tiredness spread beyond the kids, into work, friends, food and sleep, for two weeks or more.
Mental load (Daminger): Fits if part of the exhaustion is keeping track of everything: forms, meals, appointments, who needs what tomorrow.
Intensive mothering and intensive parenting (Hays): Could be the standard you hold yourself to, where good parenting means constant attention, activities and sacrifice.
Ambivalence: Fits if love and resentment toward your kids sit side by side, and the resentment feels forbidden.
Resentment: Check whether the resentment points at the kids or past them, at a partner who does less or family who never help.
Telling them apart
Parental burnout (Mikolajczak and Roskam): Researchers describe parental burnout as exhaustion from the parent role, emotional distance from the children and a loss of pleasure in parenting. The parent may do the tasks on autopilot and feel unlike the parent they used to be. It tends to grow when demands outrun help, sleep and money for a long stretch.
Major depression: Here the flatness may reach well past the kids: work, friends and food lose their taste too. Sleep may be broken even when the children sleep, and guilt may feel heavy and constant. It may last two weeks or more without much change.
Mental load (Daminger): The tiredness may come as much from keeping track as from doing: the permission slip, the dentist, the shoe size, the birthday present. That planning rarely stops, even in bed. Resentment may grow when no one else seems to see it.
Intensive mothering and intensive parenting (Hays): The parent may hold a picture of good parenting that asks for constant attention, enrichment and self-sacrifice. Falling short of it all day may wear the parent down as much as the work itself. Some of the resentment may belong to the standard.
Ambivalence: Love and resentment may sit side by side, and both may be real. Mixed feelings toward one's own children are common and seldom said aloud. Pushing the resentment away may make it louder.
Resentment: The resentment may point past the kids, at a partner who sleeps through the night or relatives who offered help and vanished. The children may be the ones in the room when it boils over. It may ease when the unfairness elsewhere gets named.
Questions to carry
- When did I last feel the resentment rise, and what was I being asked for right then?
- What would I need back to feel like myself with my kids?
Also said as
- i resent my children and feel awful
- so tired of being a parent
- parental burnout symptoms
- i don't enjoy my kids anymore
- exhausted mom who wants to run away
- i love my kids but i hate being a parent
Exhausted parents sometimes have thoughts of leaving for good, of hurting a child, or of not wanting to be alive. If any of these come up, please talk to someone today: a doctor, a crisis line or someone close. In the US, call or text 988, and Childhelp is on 1-800-422-4453, any time. In the UK, Samaritans are on 116 123, and the NSPCC helpline, 0808 800 5000, is there for anyone worried about a child. If a child is in danger now, call 911 or 999. Elsewhere, findahelpline.com lists free, confidential helplines by country.