Adventures in Parenting: Addressing Resentment, Burnout, and the Shame of Parenting Fatigue

Parenting is one job where we are constantly “on.” Being a mom or dad can feel like a thankless endeavor. Unlike paid employment, it doesn’t build in its own breaks or allow us to renegotiate our compensation. While there are many sweet and tender moments, child rearing is sometimes saturated with the mundane. In some seasons, the hum of laundry, dishes, and the rhythms of running a household drone on while our own resolve fades in weariness and parenting fatigue.

In other times, the whirlwind of parent and kid activity escalates as we juggle chores, homework, careers, and the stressors associated with raising a family in a turbulent world. We can become inundated with pressure to get ahead of the frenetic pace, then ashamed that we feel resentful of the families we love.

Some days we may be uncertain if tantrums, whether our own or that of our kids, are steamrolling us over the edge of grace. As God-appointed leaders in our homes, we must be intentional to build respite into our rhythms to preserve our peace and well-being. Otherwise, we combust and burn out, bringing catastrophe to our families and ourselves.

Parenting fatigue is real. Sometimes, the seasons we face squeeze the essence of every spiritual fruit, testing patience and stretching faith beyond what we feel is our capacity. The strain of life and the chaos of bursting schedules wear us out, dulling the edge of our effectiveness.

When mental states fray and emotions escalate, it is difficult for us to be present with ourselves, let alone fully available to the children we love. In defiance, stress levels shriek, releasing a cry for help that shows up in us and our kids through potentially destructive behaviors, if left unchecked.

While God created us to have full lives and relationships, His intention was for us to thrive. Living in joyful partnership with Him is the springboard from which all else launches. We were intended to experience rhythms of productivity and movement balanced by essential rest.

Although the world may spin in anxiety and toil, we do not have to match its endless activity. It brews resentment, burns us out, and then heaps shame on us for being unable to replenish culture and society’s ever-mounting demands.

Reimagine your journey

Our parenting journey may not look as glamorous as we’d imagined or as seamless as we’d hoped. When our own plans collapse under the weight of our uncomfortable feelings and misguided thoughts, it beckons an opportunity for us to see the Lord with fresh eyes. Our perspective shifts as we preview the masterpiece that God is illustrating on the canvas of circumstance.

He often works through the undesirable and unexpected to yield outcomes beyond our imagination. As we surrender to Him, He consumes resentment, parenting fatigue, and shame. He transforms us into better versions of ourselves, building bigger than what we thought possible, and dreaming boldly into the next dimension of adventure with Him.

Be better

Life takes a toll on our souls, causing us to languish inside and out. It drains us of what is needed to live abundantly and in alignment with God’s intention for our lives. While parenting is an important facet of our lives, it is not our all-encompassing identity. In fact, when we consume ourselves with parenting, we neglect other important parts of ourselves.

We have to nurture the total person, even as we grow in our relationship with God, ourselves, and others, including the children He’s blessed us to have. One day, the children who are extensions of us, will evolve and emerge into connections with other people. Just as they need to cultivate friendships and a healthy community apart from us, we need to do the same.

In fact, when we invest energy in cultivating purpose, outside pursuits, and relationships, we invariably give back an enhanced self to our families. Rest, not performance, allows us to authentically be who God called us to be. As we prioritize time and space for ourselves, our families get the best version of who God created and who they need us to be.

Build bigger to avoid parenting fatigue

Have you collided with frustration along your parenting journey? Sometimes, our agitation presents a divine invitation to pursue a different path. Often, the Holy Spirit moves through a vision or dream to give us a holy hunger for a new approach, whether to parenting or to life. Perfect circumstances have evaded you, and the imperfect and impossible have appeared, anticipating your response.

Employ your righteous discontent, activating what God has placed in you for “such a time as this.” (Esther 4:14) Maybe the resentment, burn out, and shame you have experienced as a person and as a parent isn’t about feeding more systems and processes. It may likely be that God is inviting you to sideline some activities. Saying no to the unnecessary and yes to what God is building in and through you may be what your soul craves.

Dream boldly

Your present parenting challenge neither marks the end of your life nor does it summarize the entirety of your life. Who knows? Maybe God is using the challenging elements of your life to sharpen what’s within. He may have been working through your concerns to seed a greater purpose.

The passion He’s developing in your tough circumstances will magnetize others whose needs are met by what He’s planted in you. It isn’t that your present life and parenting frustrations are trivial to God, but He may be fostering something beyond your imagination, by emboldening you to follow His plan for you.

While we’re laboring with God in hard seasons, lessons from our difficult experiences are more than souvenirs. Here in the natural realm, God demonstrates eternal intentions to bless and benefit others. While we may have gone through our trials and triumphs, there is no shame in sharing what we have endured.

We liberate our minds and emotions when we allow God to connect His work in our lives with those who strengthen us and those we can uplift. We break shame’s grip when we follow the Spirit to share our lives and stories with those who, like us, desperately need to hear His faithfulness amid parenting adventures.

Adventures in parenting

God’s invitation into greater doesn’t always appear as a fun-filled field trip. Sometimes, it feels frightening and daunting, causing us to question if we’ve really heard Him correctly or if we are doing right by our families. Those in Scripture who partnered with God for a job bigger than themselves, including raising a child, eventually realized that God was equipping them beyond what they could see.

Many in the Bible, like Manoah, Hannah, the Shunamite woman, Mary, and Joseph, highlight parents who feared or revered God and activated their faith under duress to care for their children. Like them, we can seek God for wisdom, understanding, counsel, and might to do for our families what is only possible with God’s Spirit. (Isaiah 11:2)

Parenting is laden with challenges on the one hand and abundant rewards on the other. It will continue to demand more than what it appears to give back. Yet, at other times, your experience will surprise you with good things, even when your children rise and bless you unexpectedly with a hug, a thank you, a phone call, or a chore completed without prompting.

In the meantime, you be kind and gracious to yourself.

The Lord’s plans for a future and for hope are unfolding now, as He cultivates the seed of His righteousness in you and your family. Seeds undergo isolation, coldness, and obscurity. While conditions don’t remain that way, this part of the process cannot be circumvented. (Genesis 8:22)

Like seeds, we as parents often encounter sacrifice first before we see the results of harvest and new life. (John 12:24) We will encounter difficult times and seasons, but nonetheless, we are graced for growth. The Father who oversees times and seasons, is committed to bringing the best out of us as parents as parents in the families we are raising. (Psalm 37:25-26)

Next steps for overcoming parenting fatigue

If you are feeling overwhelmed by parenting fatigue, invest in therapy for yourself or the entire family. A healthy and strong you will reflect in your children’s lives. Search this site to locate a counselor who matches your needs. Contact us today to continue your own adventurous journey of building better.