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I’m not a parent, but I certainly know what it’s like to carry too much.
As a former HS English teacher, I was a pro at caring for 200 students a year, and I don’t just mean teaching them about grammar and syntax. Every day, I would listen, problem-solve, and offer my room as a safe space for those who needed it. I arrived at work early, and my room rarely had a moment of solitude. But by the end of my fifth year, I knew I was burnt out, fried, weary, and exhausted.
I was doing all the “right” things. Much like a parent, I was, in a sense, just doing my job. But on the inside, I was numb, exhausted, and irritable. If I got asked to repeat the directions one more time, or allow someone to go to the bathroom even though their bathroom passes were up, I might lose it. Can you relate?
According to culture and Scripture, parenting is a blessing. It’s full of joys and sorrows, highs and lows. But many parents, especially after they’ve parented for a few years, realize they’re living out of depletion and expectation rather than balance. They’re met headfirst with parental burnout—not a weakness, but the reality of being overloaded 24/7.
We know that children are a gift from the Lord (Psalm 127:3, NLT) and blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them (Psalm 127:5, NLT), but sometimes, carrying the weight gets heavy. What happens when the role God gave us to steward begins to feel like something we have to survive?
The Quiet Kind of Burnout
Like typical burnout, parental burnout stems from giving too much of ourselves and not taking care of the cup we’re pouring out of. Parental burnout is a chronic physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion tied specifically to parenting. Some key markers can include, but are not limited to: Emotional distancing ourselves from our kids, feeling ineffective or like we’re failing, and having an overall loss of joy in parenting. If you’re feeling this way, you’re not alone. These symptoms don’t make you a bad parent—they make you human.
In addition to other mental health issues like anxiety, depression, OCD, or even postpartum depression, parents can feel drained just tending to daily tasks and to-dos. But perhaps the deeper issue here isn’t that how we’re parenting is wrong, but that we’re carrying more than we were ever meant to.
Living in the 21st century, it’s clear that cultural expectations of being a “good parent” are often unrealistic. We’re told to be present, gentle, structured, fun, healthy, and spiritually leading. But we also carry the invisible load of mental weight, emotional regulation, and decision fatigue. We may even wrestle with the spiritual tension of confusing our calling with our capacity.
When I found myself exhausted from teaching, I had to remember and reframe what Jesus was actually asking me to carry. And newsflash: it wasn’t everything.
Jesus Never Carried Everything
In Matthew 11:28-30, we read these words: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (NIV). It’s a familiar passage about rest, but I want to encourage you to see it in a new light.
Here, we know that even Jesus withdrew from crowds. Jesus didn’t meet every need. Jesus took time to be alone with God. Jesus rested when He was weary. Jesus fed His soul, but also His body and mind. And if Jesus didn’t carry everything, why do we think we should?
Despite this offered model of rest, we choose to keep carrying. Why? Because a lot of us hold pressure we place on ourselves. We have an immense fear of failing our kids. We want to be their friend, but also their protective parent.
Second, we constantly compare our parenting skills to those on TikTok, IG, and Facebook. If their parents took the kids to Hawaii, so should we. If they let their kids stay out late, so should we. The list goes on and on. Because we believe the false mantra that “Good parents sacrifice everything.” The reality is, this subtle savior complex isn’t healthy or good parenting. We weren’t created to feel responsible for outcomes only God controls.