There is a particular kind of tired that comes with motherhood.
It isn’t just needing more sleep. It’s the tired that comes from being the person who remembers everything.
The school updates and emails. The appointments. What’s in the fridge. Who needs new shoes. The birthday present you haven’t bought. The form that needs signing. The child who has been coughing for three days. The childcare bills. The washing that’s been sitting in the machine since yesterday. The groceries. The lunches. The tantrums. The emotional temperature of the entire house.
And underneath all of that is the constant knowledge that if you don’t do it, there may be nobody else who will.
For single and solo mums, that reality can be particularly stark. There isn’t necessarily another adult coming through the door at 6pm. No automatic tag-team when you’ve reached your limit. No one to take over bath time because you’re sick. No one else lying awake remembering that tomorrow is library day.
It is an invisible load because so much of it happens inside our heads.
And it is heavy.
We weren’t meant to parent like this
Modern motherhood has somehow become an incredibly individual undertaking.
We talk endlessly about independence, resilience and “doing it all”, while many of us are raising children without the extended family, neighbours and close-knit communities that previous generations could more often draw upon.
Even in two-parent Australian households, the mental load remains overwhelmingly gendered. Australian Institute of Family Studies research found that 78% of parents said planning and coordinating children’s activities was always or usually done by the mother, compared with just 3% who said it was usually or always done by the father.
Now imagine carrying that load without another parent in the house.
The issue isn’t that mothers aren’t capable.
We’re extraordinarily capable. Perhaps we’ve had to become too capable.
Our bodies keep the score too
This isn’t only about feeling overwhelmed.
Recent Australian research found that nearly 60% of parents regularly feel tired, worn out or exhausted from meeting their children’s needs, while 56% said parenting was harder than they’d expected.
Research into parental burnout also points repeatedly to the importance of social support. A 2024 systematic review identified factors including hours spent caring for children, children’s illness or behavioural difficulties, relationship factors and social support as being associated with parental burnout.
And chronic stress doesn’t neatly stay inside our heads.
The relationship between stress and physical disease is complicated – and we should be wary of claims that stress simply “causes” autoimmune disease – but research increasingly suggests that significant psychosocial stress may contribute to risk in susceptible people. One large study of more than 76,000 women found that experiencing three or more major stressful life events was associated with a higher subsequent risk of rheumatoid arthritis or lupus. The researchers described the findings as supporting further investigation into the relationship between stress and autoimmune rheumatic disease.
Our bodies are not separate from the lives we’re asking them to endure.
And sometimes “I’m struggling” means something much more serious
There have been devastating stories in Australia and around the world involving mothers and children that are almost impossible to comprehend.
When something horrific happens, our instinct is understandably to focus on the act itself.
But those cases can also raise an uncomfortable question:
How unwell can a mother become before somebody notices?
This isn’t about excusing violence. And it would be deeply wrong to suggest that exhausted or overwhelmed mothers are dangerous to their children because the overwhelming majority are not.
It’s about recognising that maternal mental illness can become severe.
In Australia, mental health conditions during pregnancy and the first year after birth are estimated to affect around one in five mothers.
And the consequences can, in rare cases, be devastating. Suicide accounted for 10% of maternal deaths in Australia between 2012 and 2021. Queensland data examining pregnancy through the first year postpartum found that 31 of 130 deaths were suicides, with most occurring after the traditional 42-day maternal-health reporting period.
Those numbers deserve more than a sad headline.
They should make us question a culture that celebrates mothers for coping quietly.
Because “she always seemed to manage” isn’t necessarily evidence that someone was okay.
Sometimes it simply means she became very good at carrying too much.
Maybe we don’t need to become better at carrying it
Women are constantly offered ways to cope better.
Wake up earlier. Exercise. Meal prep. Meditate. Organise the calendar. Take magnesium. Practise gratitude. Make time for yourself.
And yes, looking after ourselves matters.
But sometimes the problem isn’t that a woman needs a better morning routine.
Sometimes she needs another pair of hands.
Someone who can pick up a child when she’s stuck at work.
Someone who can make dinner while she deals with a meltdown.
Someone who notices she hasn’t been herself lately.
Someone she can message at 5:07pm and say, I am absolutely done today, without needing to explain what she means.
Someone who knows her children well enough to step in.
Someone who knows her well enough to notice when “I’m fine” isn’t fine.
That’s a village.
Connection isn’t a luxury
We tend to talk about community as though it’s something nice to have.
Coffee with friends. Mother’s groups. A chat at school pickup.
But practical, dependable human connection is more fundamental than that.
It’s knowing there are people around you who will notice when things aren’t okay.
It’s having somewhere for the load to go.
It’s being able to ask for help before you’re drowning.
And perhaps we’ve spent too long asking mothers how they can become more resilient when we should be asking why we’re requiring so much resilience from them in the first place.
Mummune isn’t going to solve maternal burnout, mental illness or the enormous structural pressures facing families.
But it is built on one very simple belief:
Motherhood was never supposed to be an endurance event performed alone.
Maybe the answer isn’t becoming better at carrying an impossible load.
Maybe we need more people to carry it with us.
