{"id":57524,"date":"2020-12-03T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T17:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=57524"},"modified":"2021-02-11T21:12:27","modified_gmt":"2021-02-12T04:12:27","slug":"depression-anxiety-big-issues-for-stay-at-home-moms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2020\/12\/03\/depression-anxiety-big-issues-for-stay-at-home-moms\/","title":{"rendered":"Depression, anxiety big issues for stay-at-home moms"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mom at work:<\/strong> Sumanpreet Kaur Sekhon feeds her nine-month-old child in her Calgary home on Oct. 26. She is a full-time stay-at-home mom and spends most of each day taking care of her child. (Photo by Arshdeep Kaur\/SAIT)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

E<\/span>ven before the pandemic, polls found that stay-at-home moms reported more depression, anger and stress than the women who worked outside the home.<\/p>\n

A<\/span> few years ago, a Gallup analysis<\/a> of more than 60,000 women in the U.S. found that more than a quarter of stay-at-home reported feeling depressed.<\/p>\n

Even in today\u2019s most modern and progressive societies, there\u2019s a misconception that such moms have a whole lot of time on their hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have schedules, duties, projects, and routines,\u201d says Sumanpreet Kaur Sekhon, a stay-at-home mom of a nine month old.<\/p>\n

Being home alone with young children, for what seems like an eternity, may not always be the most ideal situation for prime mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a mom who stays home, you just don\u2019t have time to take care of yourself because you\u2019re always busy taking care of your family, you do it because you don\u2019t have a choice,\u201d Sekhon said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Depression is often overlooked among moms because not going to work every day is viewed as a privilege. That often means women who struggle may feel like they don\u2019t have the right to speak out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell myself that so many women would kill to be home with their kids all day,\u201d says Grace Gibbons, 29, a stay-at-home mother of two, from Vancouver.<\/p>\n

She says that she sometimes cries while pushing her daughters outside in their little baby swing, and tells herself over and over that she should be happy just to be with her daughters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mental load of motherhood is real, but my obsessive need to do something more outside of mothering can make it feel unbearable,\u201d says Gibbons who once was a contemporary dancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI care what people think of me though I desperately try not to,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The reality is, the very structure of stay-at-home mothering can make a woman prone to depression even more susceptible.<\/p>\n

Gibbons tried medications and communicating more openly with her family about her struggles, but she still feels like she\u2019s living in survival mode.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to find my identity outside of motherhood,\u201d Gibbons says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am hoping to start dancing again, which I think would help me dig myself out of this darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ready to play:<\/strong> Sumanpreet Kaur Sekhon with her nine month old in her Calgary home on Oct. 26. (Photo by Arshdeep Kaur\/SAIT)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even before the pandemic, polls found that stay-at-home moms reported more depression, anger, and stress than the women who worked outside the home. [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":644,"featured_media":57525,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"S2 SAHMs","footnotes":""},"categories":[711],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-57524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/644"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57524"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58840,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57524\/revisions\/58840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}