It’s 7 a.m. I’ve already weathered two hours of my day after an early wake up, a job crisis, a tantrum that involved one toddler ripping his fresh diaper and all his clothes back off as I raced out the door to work, inhaling a granola bar. In the meantime, the insurance rep called back about a bill discrepancy, and I fielded multiple texts from day care about a sickness spreading through the classroom. Along the way, I packed a literal rock for one kid’s science class and a field trip form for another kid and asked a friend about sports carpooling.
This is a normal morning as a working mom to five young kids. Navigating this whirlwind of tasks is called the “invisible load” or “mental load,” and the Calm app is now shining a light on this taxing part of motherhood by creating the “Not Calm Moms” club.
Calm’s response to the mental load
Calm is a mental health and mindfulness program that leads people, not just parents, through guided meditations, soothing sounds, educational videos and soundtracks, and helps them check in with their feelings. Recently, they announced the “Not Calm Moms” club, with the vision of publicly acknowledging and addressing a growing burnout crisis among moms. They address the real emotions moms are dealing with, since many mothers feel they can’t do anything right in modern society:
“Because moms are not calm. We’re light on sleep, heavy on mental load. We feel pressure to be everything to everyone, and no matter how much we do, it feels like it’s never good enough. Our days can feel messy and chaotic, and even if we’re at our breaking point, we’re expected to just keep going,” the Not Calm Moms blog states. “And we know the most powerful anchor for our mental health is connection, validation, and… other moms. That’s why we’ve created the Not Calm Moms Club: a place for all of us to be seen, find support, and feel less alone.”
The rage rooms are full
One contributor to the Not Calm Moms club was former Calm managing editor Lesley Messer, who announced the project on LinkedIn, saying, “So many moms feel pressure to work like they don’t have kids and parent like they don’t have a job.” This is the sentiment that the team at Calm aims to address in their program, complete with “rage rooms” where mothers “skip the brunch” on Mother’s Day and meet in person to “break some sh*t” in commiseration with other moms. Sound strange? It doesn’t to the moms who already signed up—and sold out the program.
They are welcoming the rage moms feel at the expectations put on us. “This is a place for it all. The good, the bad, the ugly, the raw, the real… the very un-calm parts of your motherhood journey can exist here,” they wrote.
The data behind the mental load
For those less familiar with the mental load, it’s not just in our heads. Since the pandemic, blurred lines with hybrid workplace expectations have created entirely new norms for parents balancing their laptops in their home office with their toddlers climbing their chairs in Zoom calls. During summer breaks and holiday seasons, stress levels skyrocket as moms are often expected to continue on with limited access to affordable child care options. So, logically, moms’ stress levels are spiking as they face tremendous pressure to succeed as both employees and parents.
In December 2024, Fair Play Lifestyle, part of author and parenting expert Eve Rodsky’s movement to equalize the parenting load in recent years, shared the Fair Play Report, which shows there’s still much work to be done. In 29 of 30 cognitive tasks, mothers were responsible. In 28 of 30 physical household labor responsibilities, mothers were in charge. In fact, taking out the garbage was literally the only task where both partners were equally responsible, the findings show.
So, it makes sense that moms are raging. In addition to those in-person rage sessions, the Calm app is offering moms a variety of resources to help ease the rage. Another supportive function is that the resources help moms move through a pathway based on their current emotion, such as “overwhelmed” or “lonely” with tailored listening content, tips and downloads for that mood.
Calm says, “No one here is expecting you to be the perfect mom. We know you love your kids, and also that you have days when you want to cry in the shower, scream into a pillow, or just take a really, really long nap— and we don’t judge you for any of it. Mostly because we’re right there in the quicksand flailing around with you. Because moms don’t need to calm down, we need each other.”
Photo by fizkes/Shutterstock
